


'Twas the Night Before Christmas

by DKNC



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, F/M, Family Drama, Family Feels, Stark family through six Christmas Eves, a bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-05 23:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 81,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5394956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DKNC/pseuds/DKNC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some would say Ned and Catelyn Stark became a family by accident or even by terrible misfortune. But however they started out, a family is what they made together, and the two of them would protect and cherish that family for all of their lives. And from the very beginning, Christmas Eve seemed to hold a special significance to the two of them through the years.</p><p>A modern era Stark family tale that visits six Christmas Eves scattered over 35 years beginning in 1990.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Christmas Eve, 1990--Eddard Stark

Ned Stark watched people pull their coats tighter around them as they bent their heads against the cold wind which forced snowflakes sideways down the street on this bitterly cold afternoon. Contrary to what his friends believed, he could feel the chill. It just didn’t bother him. Never had. His father had claimed that was a family trait developed over long years of life in the northern wilderness, and it was true that none of his siblings were overly troubled by cold weather. But even they had always considered Ned’s apparent imperviousness to cold almost inhuman. Brandon and Lyanna had cracked jokes about it all the time.

When they’d been alive to crack jokes. He still forgot they were dead sometimes, and it jarred him out of his numbness every time he caught himself thinking of them in the present tense. Or Father. Or Ashara. All of them had been alive last Christmas. Cold never made him feel numb, but it seemed that too much grief accomplished it pretty well. Numb was better than the alternative. He couldn’t fall apart. Ben needed him. Ben was little more than a kid for all that he tried to be so grown up, and he’d now lost everybody in his world except for Ned. 

And Jon needed him, of course. The thought of Jon terrified him and made him feel oddly warm at the same time. He still found it hard to believe he was someone’s father. He’d always figured he’d get married and have kids someday, but he sure as hell never expected to get an “I’m pregnant” phone call after three casual dates. He hadn’t loved Ashara when Jon was conceived. He was ashamed to admit that he’d barely known her. But he’d come to care a lot about her in the ensuing months even as she stubbornly refused to get the abortion her family wanted or marry him like he wanted. She was adamant about having her baby on her own terms, but she never tried to shut him out, and they’d grown closer and closer throughout her pregnancy. She was even starting to come around on the whole marriage idea, and she’d told him she loved him when he sat beside her and held her hand as Jon was born. He’d never realized he was capable of so much love until he saw her holding their son in her arms, putting him to her breast. When she’d kicked him out and ordered him to go get some sleep, he’d gone first to buy her a ring, determined to come back the next morning and convince her to marry him. But instead, he’d arrived at the hospital to find a grim faced Arthur Dayne informing him that Ashara had died during the night. Something about a massive blood clot going to her lungs. Apparently she had some sort of blood disorder that made pregnancy dangerous and that’s why her family had pushed her to terminate it. Ned hadn’t known. She’d never told him. That didn’t keep Arthur from telling him he was responsible for her death, though. And it didn’t keep Ned from feeling it.

They hadn’t even finished filling out the information for the birth certificate. His name wasn’t on it. He and Ashara weren’t married. Ashara’s parents took his son home, and Ned hadn’t even seen him for two months. That’s when the court finally ordered visitation rights for him during the long, contentious custody battle. 

He realized he was standing outside the library, having walked several blocks lost in his own thoughts. He was surprised it was open on Christmas Eve, but not surprised that Catelyn had chosen it as the place to meet him as long as it was. They had gotten to know each other in this library as it was the most convenient place for them to get together when Brandon had first asked him to tutor his girlfriend in Calculus. Cat was smart, but she didn’t care for math. Ned had always maintained that she could have straight A’s in Calculus if she really put her mind to it, but she’d just smiled and said she’d be perfectly content if he could help her get the grade up to a B so it didn’t impact her scholarship.

That had been years ago. Before he ever met Ashara. Before he’d lost her and had his son taken from him. Before he’d lost almost his entire family. Years ago, he’d come to this library twice a week for an entire semester to talk Calculus and Brandon and life in general with a copper haired, blue eyed, beautiful girl with a heart-stopping smile, and the only disappointment in his life was that his brother had met her first. They’d both been so young then, and they’d become friends. Even if their interactions outside the library were pretty much limited to Stark family events that Catelyn attended with Brandon.

He honestly couldn’t imagine why she’d called him to meet her here this evening. It was only 4:30pm, but it was already getting dark outside. He pushed open the door to the library and stomped his feet on the mat to shake the snow off them. Then he shook the snow out of his hair.

“You really should wear a hat, you know. Even if you swear it isn’t cold.”

She was standing there leaning against the wall, still wearing her thick coat. 

“Where’s your hat?” he asked her.

She laughed, but it lacked its usual joyful music, and her subsequent smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I wore my hood up when I was outside. I’ve been here a few minutes, but I’m still not warm enough to take my coat off.”

Ned shook his head. Catelyn was possibly the thinnest blooded human being he’d ever met. Of course, the one time he’d gone south to where she was raised to spend a weekend on the river with her and Brandon and some other friends from college, he’d nearly melted every time he got out of the water.

“Then what are you doing standing so near the doorway?” he asked her. “Let’s go sit down.”

He reached out toward her, but she turned away and started walking into the main room of the library leaving him to follow. The library was nearly deserted which was unsurprising given the date, but she still led him to a rather secluded table before she sat down.

“I saw in the paper that you finally won your custody case. I’m happy for you, Ned.”

“Yeah. I’ve had Jon full time for a little over a month now. The Daynes get visitation every other weekend which still isn’t very pleasant for me, but they are Jon’s family so . . .” He shrugged.

“I meant to call you when I saw it. Ask if you needed any help. But . . .” She bit her lip and shook her head.

He hadn’t expected her to call. They’d barely seen each other since the funeral. Dad’s and Brandon’s. She’d held onto him there and cried and cried. But a week later when he’d stopped by her place to see how she was doing, she’d heard him talking to her roommate and nearly run into the room saying, “Brandon?” in an almost breathless voice with a painful sort of hope in her eyes which died pretty quickly when he turned around to face her. He and his brother only looked a little alike but their voices had always been very similar. “Catelyn, I’m . . .” he’d started to say, but she’d interrupted him by shaking her head and saying, “I’m sorry. I just . . . you sound so like him.”

He didn’t remember much of the rest of their conversation other than it had been awkward and painful. He’d left quickly, and the two of them hadn’t sought each other out since. They’d both loved Brandon too much for the other not to call to mind memory and grief. He couldn’t imagine why she’d called him today of all days.

“Ned?”

He realized he must have been silent too long. “You look good, Cat.”

“Brandon was right. You’re a terrible liar.”

“No. You do. I mean . . . you look a little sad, but . . . you always look good.”

She smiled again but it stopped short of those blue eyes just as it had before. He wondered if she was always this sad still or if his presence still called Brandon too strongly to her mind. She’d dated him for over four years, and they were supposed to get married next spring. He’d only been dead three months. Ned wondered if she sometimes forgot for an instant that Brandon was dead the way he did. It must hurt her like hell every time if she did.

“You were always sweet, Ned.” She chewed her lip and seemed to think about what to say next. “I’m sorry I called you on Christmas Eve. It’s just that . . .”

“Hey. You can call any time. I mean that.”

Her eyes actually teared up, and he wondered if he’d said something wrong. He wondered why she had called him. Hell, why was she even here on Christmas Eve?

“Why aren’t you down south, Cat?” he asked her. “I figured you’d spend Christmas at Riverrun.” She had come to Winterfell for Christmas last year for the first time, and while she seemed to enjoy it, he knew she’d missed her own family and home. She’d admitted to him that she’d never spent a Christmas Eve away from her childhood home before.

“I . . . Oh, Ned, it’s such a mess!” She put her face in her hands and started to cry in earnest. 

Not knowing what else to do, Ned got up and pushed his own chair around the table beside hers, sat down and patted her back sort of awkwardly. He realized she still had her coat on. Surely, she was hot by now.

“I’m sorry, Ned. I’m so sorry,” she said into her hands when she’d regained a bit of control. “None of this is your problem, but I didn’t know who else . . . I couldn’t think of anybody who . . . I’m sorry.”

“Catelyn, what is it? Just tell me.”

She looked up at him then and said two words almost inaudibly. “I’m pregnant.”

Whatever he’d imagined her saying, he’d never have expected that. “Oh, Cat,” he said.

“It’s Brandon’s,” she said hurriedly as if he wouldn’t know that.

“Well I figured that. How long have you known?”

“Since about five or six weeks after the funeral, I guess. I should have realized it sooner, but . . . I wasn’t really paying attention to . . . to anything. I didn’t really feel like I was still here . . . if that makes any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense.”

She didn’t say anything else for a moment, and as he didn’t know what to say next, he said, “Aren’t you hot? Let me help you out of that coat.”

She made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and started undoing the buttons of her coat. “I guess I might as well. Now that you know.” She stood up to shrug the coat off her shoulders. He stood up to take it from her. “I’m about four months along. It’s starting to show.”

Without her coat on, he could see what she meant. If you didn’t know how tiny she was around the middle, the little rounding of her belly might not seem significant, but he could see it easily now that he knew to look. And he remembered how Ashara’s shape had slowly changed with Jon. She’d had a build somewhat similar to Catelyn’s although nothing else about the two women looked alike.

“Four months. Why . . . why didn’t you call me? That’s my niece or nephew, Cat. You know you can count on me to be there for you.”

She looked in his eyes for a long moment. “I do know that, Ned,” she said softly. Then she sat down again, and he did as well, laying her coat on the table. “It’s just that you already had so much on your plate with the custody battle even before Brandon . . . died. And even when it was over, well then you had your own baby to deal with.” She looked at him sadly. “And you’ve lost so many people this year. I don’t know how you’ve managed to stay sane.”

“Well . . . sometimes my sanity’s in question. But I’m hanging in there. And you’ve lost people, too. You cared about Lyanna and Dad, I know. And Brandon . . . well, he was my brother, but he was the love of your life. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

“He didn’t even know,” she said, tearing up again. Before Ned could reassure her that his brother knew exactly how much she loved him, she clarified, “About the baby. I wish he at least knew he was a father.”

“He does. Somehow, I’m sure he does, Cat.”

She laughed a little more genuinely at that. “Says the man who questions every organized religion he comes across.”

“Hey. Just because I don’t know exactly what happens after we finish up this life doesn’t mean I don’t believe something does . . . that somehow we go on.” He smiled at her. “I know this isn’t what you planned, Cat, and maybe this is selfish of me, but I’m kind of glad that something of Brandon is going to continue here, too.”

She smiled back and for the first time, her eyes smiled along with her lips. “I feel the same way. I’m scared, and in some ways I feel more alone than I ever have, but I want my baby. Brandon’s baby.” She sighed. “I just couldn’t take being quite so alone on Christmas Eve. And so I called you. And I took you away from your own baby. Talk about selfish. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about that. Ben’s there spoiling him rotten. But Catelyn, why are you alone? Why aren’t you at Riverrun with your family?”

Her face hardened. “Because my father doesn’t want me there.”

“What?”

“He’s ashamed of me, he said. I told him not long after I realized it myself, and he said he never thought I’d disappoint him so terribly. He offered to send me somewhere until I could give birth and give the baby up for adoption.” 

Ned stared at her open mouthed. Hoster Tully had always struck him as devoted to his daughters, especially Catelyn. The man was about as conservative as they come, but he loved his children. 

“When I told him I had no intention of giving this baby up,” she continued, “he really lost it. He said not only had I fallen into the sin of lust and fornication, but I was abominably selfish for bringing a child into the world with no father and no name.”

“This baby will have a name!” Ned insisted. “Stark!”

“Yes, well, my father doesn’t see how that’s possible as I’m unmarried and Brandon’s dead. He’s also furious about what becoming an unwed mother will do to the rest of my life.” She made a terrible face and lowered her voice as she spoke the words ‘unwed mother’ in an impression of her father.

“He honestly kicked you out?” he asked incredulously.

“No,” she said. “He wouldn’t do that. Daddy . . . Daddy is angry with me. And disappointed and ashamed of me. But he wouldn’t make me leave. I just couldn’t stay there, Ned. And I couldn’t go back for Christmas. I can’t kneel down in church beside my father at Midnight Mass knowing that he’s praying for me to repent of my sinful, selfish ways when I’m not sorry for anything I ever shared with Brandon. Including this child.”

“You shouldn’t be,” he told her firmly. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Cat.”

“I’m not ashamed. But I am a bit scared. Because Daddy is right about this not being easy. And however enlightened I try to be, I do hate the idea of my child growing up without a father. I won’t take help from my father as long as he acts as if I should wear a scarlet letter, and I honestly don’t know if I can do this by myself.” She sighed. “You really won’t mind if I give the baby the last name Stark?”

“You aren’t seriously asking me that, are you? Your son or daughter is as much a Stark as Jon is! And I don’t want you to have to go to the trouble of legally changing the name when the baby’s nearly six months old.” It still irritated him that his son had left the hospital as Jon Dayne. Once he won custody, he still had to petition the court for the name change. It was all behind him now, but it still rankled. The Daynes were Ashara’s family. That made them Jon’s family as well and he’d never cut them out of his son’s life. But he was Jon’s father, and Jon was entitled to the name Stark. Brandon was Catelyn’s baby’s father, and that made this baby a Stark, too.

She smiled again. “They’ll be less than a year apart. Jon’s about six months old now, right?”

He nodded.

“They’ll be just about a month shy of one year apart then. I’d like them to know each other.”

“Know each other? They’ll be cousins, Catelyn! They’ll be as close as Brandon and I were. Or Brandon and Lyanna, if you have a girl.”

“I’d like that,” she whispered. “I’d like to give my baby a family. A real family.” She shook her head as if that were an impossibility.

Looking at her then, Ned couldn’t help but see the girl he’d spent hours with in this very library when she was barely eighteen years old, watching her frown at the derivatives in her textbook and trying to ignore what those little frowns and every other little expression on that face could do to his insides. He never doubted that her heart belonged to Brandon, but there had always been something about her that made him willing to do anything to help her out whenever she was in need . . . to keep her from frowning about anything more significant than calculus.

She was certainly more grown up now. They both were. Her heart very obviously still belonged to Brandon. His death hadn’t changed that at all. But Ned realized he’d still do just about anything to help her. To solve her problems. To keep her from frowning.

“Well,” he said slowly. “If by real family, you mean the whole mommy/daddy/sibling/pets thing, I suppose you could just marry me.”

“What?” she asked, laughing, certain he was joking.

Maybe he was joking. If he wasn’t joking, he was crazy. “I’m just saying that if you can’t come up with anything better, we could probably do a pretty good job at giving both our kids a family. This offer even gives your baby a big brother. And I suppose we could buy a dog.”

“Ned! You can’t possibly be serious.” She looked at him a long moment. “Oh god, you aren’t, are you?” 

He honestly didn’t know. So he didn’t say anything.

She reached out and took his hands. “Ned, I love you. I really do. Just talking to you has made me feel better about this whole situation than anything else has since I first realized I was pregnant. But . . . I’m not in love with you. I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be in love again. And I know you’re not in love with me.”

“You are in love, Catelyn. Not with me, of course. With Brandon. You don’t just fall out of love because he’s died. I know that. I’m still not over what happened to Ashara.” He didn’t say he was still in love with her because he honestly didn’t know if he ever had been. He’d loved her though. And he didn’t think that was going to change. She’d given him Jon.

“So you are teasing, then.”

“No,” he said suddenly. He’d been fully prepared to marry Ashara from the moment he found out she carried his child even before he loved her. And he hadn’t dreaded the thought either. He’d just been determined to make it work. This was different, of course. Ashara hadn’t been in love with his dead brother, and her baby had been his, not Brandon’s. But where Ashara had been perfectly fine with the idea of single parenthood, he knew that Catelyn, for all her brave talk, wasn’t. She’d been raised by Hoster Tully, after all, and Ned knew perfectly well that she took her father’s words more to heart than she wanted to admit.

“Then you were right when you said you questioned your sanity. I’m questioning it a bit right now, too.”

“Maybe I am crazy, Cat. But maybe being madly in love isn’t the only good reason to get married. We like each other. We could help each other. I know we could be good for our children.” The more he talked, the more he thought he might actually not be crazy.

“But Ned, there’s more to a marriage than that. There’s . . .” Her cheeks flushed crimson, and he knew precisely where her thoughts had gone.

“There doesn’t have to be.” He sighed. “I know. This sounds completely nuts. I don’t even know where the idea came from. So forget about it, if you want.”

“I . . . can’t possibly take you up on it, Ned, but maybe I’m a little crazy, too, because if I’m being honest, it sounds kind of good to me right now.”

He looked at her, sitting there with her hands over her little barely rounded belly in a library on Christmas Eve with her dead fiance’s brother because she was lonely and scared and believed she had no one else to call. “Well, let’s table it for now. I don’t think either of us needs to be making life choices in the library today. And I think that look we’re getting from the lady over at the desk means she’d like to close this place up anyway.”

“Oh! You’re right. It closes at five. I should let you get back to Ben and Jon.”

“No. I have another offer for you. Since you’re in town, come spend Christmas Eve with us. I promise not to extend any more bizarre proposals, but I’d love to have you come over and be suitably impressed by my genius son who has mastered the fine art of sitting up. And Ben will be happy about your news, too, Cat. After the whole mess with Jon, he’s utterly unfazed by nephews or nieces born out of wedlock, I promise.”

She hesitated.

“Please,” he said, wishing he could do puppy dog eyes like all of his siblings could do. But he’d been given the least attractive and least expressive face of the four.

“All right,” she finally said. “I’ll come for a little while.”

Once they were back in their coats, they walked back to the door. He could see her shiver as the first gust of wind hit her and she pulled the hood up over her head. As they stepped out into the cold, he put an arm around her just to keep her a bit warmer as they walked. They matched their strides easily and she leaned into him seemingly unconsciously as another gust blew into their faces. He couldn’t help but think that they fit together rather well. He wouldn’t mention his crazy idea again. Not any time soon anyway. But he didn’t think he would be able to forget about it either.


	2. Christmas Eve 1993--Catelyn Stark

Catelyn Stark held her newborn daughter in her trembling arms, marveling at her child’s perfection. She’d wondered frequently and somewhat guiltily during this pregnancy if it were even possible to love another child as much as she loved her first, but that nagging fear had been put to rest the moment her husband laid the baby in her arms. 

“Are you certain you’re not cold, Cat?”

She looked up at the man who stood beside her bed, who’d sat beside her through a labor that had been considerably longer than Robb’s. He likely had bruises on his poor hand from where she’d gripped it so tightly. “No, Ned. I’m just . . . shaky. It was that way after Robb as well. It will pass.” Her sister had sat beside her through her labor with her son. She’d been grateful to Lysa, but even then, it had been Ned she’d wanted—Ned who made her feel safe. But he had been simply her dead fiance’s brother then. Her father would have died had she allowed Ned to stay with her during the birth. 

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Just like you,” Ned whispered now.

She smiled up at him and looked back at their daughter. “She’s more beautiful than I ever was.”

“That isn’t possible.”

He said it with such certainty that no one could doubt he believed his words, and she bit her lip hard. He did find her beautiful. She knew that. And even if his heart still belonged to Ashara Dayne, he had found some comfort in this marriage of theirs. She had to believe that. God knew he’d been more than a comfort to her.

He’d never let her want for anything during her pregnancy with Robb regardless of how often she tried to refuse the things he gave her stating that she could hardly accept his charity when she wouldn’t accept her own father’s. He’d been honestly offended when she called it that. She could still hear his quiet, deep voice saying, “It isn’t charity, Catelyn. It’s family. That child is my nephew, and you are his mother. That makes you family. Starks do not turn their backs on their family.”

His words had made her cry because that’s what she’d always believed about her own family, and her father’s harsh judgment of her had stung badly. That relationship was mended now, but she knew it would never be quite the same as it had been when she was younger and nearly worshipped her father. She knew that Ned had spoken to him long before she’d been willing to call him. She didn’t know exactly how that conversation had gone, but she knew perfectly well that he was responsible for her father reaching out to her. And whatever anger remained, she had been glad to have Daddy there when Robb was born, waiting outside the birthing room with Ned and Edmure, and her father’s immediate love for Robb had been genuine enough to go even further toward her allowing him back into her own heart even more.

But in terms of actual help with Robb, well that had been Ned again—showing up at her apartment several times a week just to check on them, often bringing Jon along. She hadn’t really appreciated how complicated his life as a single father was until she became a single mother. Nor had she truly grasped what it must have been for him to have Jon taken away from him for the first few months of his life until she held Robb in her arms. Had anyone so much as tried to take her son, she would have clawed their eyes out. Gradually, as she became more comfortable with the idea of being a mother and more confident in her ability to actually keep her child alive and relatively content, she realized she could help Ned as much as he helped her. She’d been unforgivably selfish since she’d first called him on that Christmas Eve. Ned had given and given, and she’d been perfectly content to simply take. By the time Robb was three months old and Jon a couple months past his first birthday, she was done with that.

She began going to his place as often as he came to hers, cooking him dinners and playing with Jon. Jon was fascinated by Robb and was saying ‘baby’ as early as he was saying ‘Dada’. His affection was returned enthusiastically. Robb’s first full belly laugh at about five months of age was for Jon dancing on little toddler legs to Ned’s off key rendition of ‘Stayin Alive.’ Poor Ned initially sang it to tease her after she confessed to liking the Bee Gees as a girl, and then had to keep singing because Jon adored it.

That’s when she’d realized he’d been right in the library. They were better together than they were apart. They liked each other. Their sons loved each other. The boys were family, after all, so why shouldn’t they give them a real family? Ned had only mentioned his proposal (had it even been an actual proposal?) a couple times in passing since that Christmas Eve, and always at least half in jest. But that night after Jon was tucked in his bed, and Ned was preparing to carry a sleeping Robb out to her car for her, she realized she honestly wished she didn’t have to leave. 

So she’d brought it up. And they’d talked about it somewhat awkwardly for another two hours until they were too tired to talk anymore, and she was too tired to drive home so she and Robb had simply stayed the night, curled up together in Ned’s guest bedroom. As embarrassed as she’d felt about the entire conversation the next morning, she’d awakened convinced it was the right thing for both of them. She’d still believed herself in love with Brandon then (or maybe she still had been in love with him—she could never quite pinpoint the moment when Brandon had gone from the man who held her entire heart to a man she had once loved and would have a place in one part of her heart forever), and could not imagine ever loving anyone else. She’d known Ned felt the same about Ashara. Why not spend their lives together instead of forever lonely? Neither would ask for what the other couldn’t give. They’d talked about that. And the boys deserved a real family. Ned had been right about that. And she wanted it for all of them.

They’d married in a small ceremony six months later. Both had been surprised at the complete lack of surprise exhibited by their families at their marriage, but they were pleased by the familial support. For the first eight months of their marriage, they’d lived in Ned’s apartment—more roommates than husband and wife, but with a growing sexual tension between them neither knew precisely what to do about. Then Benjen had come to them and said he was joining the army, and if the two of them weren’t going to live in Winterfell—the Starks’ big family home—they might as well sell it.

Winterfell was the home she’d believed for so long she would one day share with Brandon. The thought of living there as Ned’s wife instead made her feel somehow guilty and wrong, but she knew selling Winterfell would kill Ned (and how could she take it from Robb—the one thing of Brandon’s he might someday call his own?) so she’d immediately suggested they move their little family there when Ben left. Ned had looked at her with those too serious grey eyes of his and said, “You do not have to do this, Cat. I promised I would never ask for what you cannot give, and I will not.”

She’d cried then, and he’d put his arms around her which had made her feel safer and stronger almost at once. “I want this,” she’d whispered, turning her face up to his. “I really do.” He’d understood she spoke of more than Winterfell, and they’d made love for the first time ever, clinging to each other the way drowning people might cling to the only lifeline they could find.

They never really talked about it. They moved the boys into Winterfell, giving them each their own room and sharing the master bedroom themselves. Catelyn had never shared a bed with anyone except Brandon (and her sister as a child), and she found that simply having Ned sleep beside her each night brought her as much peace and comfort as their new sexual relationship brought her physical pleasure and release. She thought it might be the same for him. But they never really talked about it.

When she’d realized she was pregnant just before Robb’s second birthday, she’d been immediately thrilled, and forced to admit at least to herself that she wasn’t merely thrilled at having a baby—she was thrilled to be having Ned’s baby. And that she wanted to have Ned’s child because she was completely, irrevocably in love with her husband. She didn’t tell him that, of course. She wouldn’t put that burden on the man who already took on far too many burdens that shouldn’t be his. Instead, she simply told him about the baby and watched his slow, incredulous smile transform his face before he picked her up and spun her around in an uncharacteristic moment of sheer unadulterated joy. She would treasure that moment forever.

“Cat, are you all right?”

She startled at the sound of his voice and realized she’d been lost in her own thoughts entirely too long.

“I’m . . . I think I am a little cold,” she said, thinking that she wanted his arms around her as she held their daughter.

“Of course you are, my thin-blooded southern wife,” he said, smiling slightly before sitting down on the bed beside her and moving her to lean against him so he could wrap himself around her and support her as she held the baby, just as she knew he would do. She’d never felt so warm.

“She is a lot prettier than I was as a baby,” Catelyn said tracing a finger along the soft pink curve of the little girl’s face.

“I don’t believe it.” He kissed the top of her head, and Catelyn felt her heart skip a beat. “She is, thank God, a thousand times prettier than I was as a baby. The lucky girl is all you, Cat.”

“No,” she said quickly, shaking her head and twisting around to look at him again. “She’s half you. Whatever color hair she has. She’s as much yours as she is mine, Ned.” He regarded her with an inscrutable expression, and she balanced the baby in one arm so that she could reach up and trace his face with her finger just as she had done their daughter’s a moment ago. “She’s ours. And she’s perfect.”

“I know,” he said softly, catching her hand in his and kissing her palm. “Merry Christmas, Cat.” 

The obstetrician and nurses had left them, and she knew she should let her father and his brother and their two little sons in to see the new baby, but she felt selfish at the moment. She didn’t want to share. She wanted this little Christmas Eve miracle to be just hers and Ned’s for a little bit longer.

They simply looked at each other for a moment or a year. Catelyn wasn’t certain which, and then he broke their gaze to look back down at their baby. “So, is she Sansa then?”

That was the name they’d both liked best when they’d gone over old family trees on both sides as well as baby name books. She nodded. “Sansa Lyanna Stark. A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.

“Are you sure about Lyanna, though? That’s two Stark names. Would you like her middle name to be from your side? Your mother’s perhaps?”

Catelyn shook her head. She missed her mother—probably more at the births of her children than at any other time. But it was an old wound. The loss of Ned’s sister—of his entire family other than Ben—was much fresher still. She wanted to honor his sister for him. And she liked that Sansa looking nothing like her namesake aunt might keep her middle name from giving Ned too many painful memories.

“We’ll save Minisa for our next daughter,” she said lightly, and then she blushed. She and Ned had never talked about having more children. Sansa had been a bit of a surprise. Well, not a surprise, she supposed as they’d not been especially careful about preventing pregnancy—contraception and family planning was simply one more thing they didn’t really talk about—but they hadn’t intentionally conceived her.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he said. “Our next daughter . . . or son . . . gets at least one Tully name. It’s only fair.”

She smiled at him. He did want more children with her then. She’d give him as many as he’d like. 

“We’ll have to be good to her on her birthdays, you know,” he continued. “I had a friend growing up whose birthday was December 23rd, and he always complained it got lost in Christmas. We’ll have to make certain she feels special every year.”

“I’m not worried. You’re good at making people feel special.”

His face darkened a bit at that. “Am I? I fear I don’t tell you often enough how special you are, Cat. I don’t mean how beautiful you are or what a wonderful mother you are, but . . . what you mean to . . .”

“I know, Ned. I understand.” He cared about her, and he was beyond grateful to her for his daughter. She knew that, but she couldn’t let him keep speaking about it when the words, ‘I love you’ were so close to her lips. She couldn’t keep them inside if he kept looking at her like that, and she couldn’t bear to see the guilt in his eyes at his inability to return those words. Not on this day. Nothing would mar this day.

He did stop, although he looked almost pained at not finishing his sentence. Then he asked, “May I hold her?”

“She’s yours!” Catelyn laughed, lifting her into her father’s arms. “She hasn’t nursed yet, so I’ll have to take her back soon, but she seems content now.”

He stood again and walked around the room with the baby in his arms. The loss of his arms around her was compensated for by her joy in watching him gaze at Sansa with that incredible mixture of awe and all-consuming love. After a moment, he looked up.

“Catelyn,” he said seriously, almost formally. “She is ours. And Robb and Jon are both her brothers.”

“Yes,” she laughed, wanting to bring his smile back. “It’s like that old movie, I suppose. ‘Yours, Mine, and Ours.’ Except with considerably fewer children.”

“I suppose it is,” he responded, smiling only briefly before turning serious again. “But I want them to feel they are all ours. That we all belong to each other.”

“Of course,” she said quickly. At just over two and a half and three and a half respectively, both Robb and Jon called Ned ‘Daddy.’ Robb called her ‘Mama’ and Jon alternated between calling her ‘Cat’ and ‘Mommy’ but then Jon had been old enough to learn her name before she and Ned had married. “The boys do feel that way, Ned. You know they do.”

“I . . . I think I should formally adopt Robb,” he said, speaking the words as if he feared they might wound her. “I don’t mean to usurp Brandon’s place, and he’ll always know who fathered him, but I want him to know he means as much to me as Jon or Sansa . . . or any other children we have.”

She smiled at him. Of course, he wanted Robb to be his son in the eyes of the law. Robb was his son. Ned had never treated him as anything else. It would also make Robb’s legal standing clear if something ever happened to her. “Of course,” she said. “We should have done it already.”

“You’re not upset by it?” he asked cautiously, coming back to sit down on the bed beside her. “I know that Brandon . . .”

“Brandon is dead, Ned,” she said flatly. “I loved him. I want Robb to know that, and I’ll tell him all about his birth father. You will, too. But you’re his father, Ned—the only father he’ll ever know or need. He loves you, and you love him.” She swallowed hard and then continued because Ned would need to hear it. “And Brandon would say the same.”

He nodded. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You never want to hurt me. And you haven’t. You should adopt Robb, and I should adopt Jon. It only makes sense.”

His face darkened again, and she wondered what was wrong.

“About Jon . . . I don’t know that . . .”

Her heart fell. He wanted Robb to be his. He loved him as a son. His love for Sansa was all over his face. But he didn’t want her to have Ashara Dayne’s son. He couldn’t let go of his love for the dead woman even that much.

“I know you love her, Ned,” she whispered, trying to keep the tears out of her eyes. “But she’s dead. I’m sorry. I really am. But she’s dead. And Jon needs a mother here and now, the same way that Robb needs a father. I’ll never try to take her place. I promise I won’t, but legally it only . . .”

“It’s nothing to do with Ashara!” he nearly shouted, looking at her as if her words had only just begun to make sense to him.

Sansa startled in his arms and began to cry, and he carried the baby back to her. Then he sat on the bed, facing her this time instead of holding her. “It’s nothing to do with Ashara,” he said more softly. “Cat, I know you’d never try to erase Jon’s mother. It’s . . . the Daynes. You know how prickly they are about being his family.”

She knew. They were never pleased when she came to pick Jon up after his visitations with them, insisting that she was not his parent and they preferred to hand him off only to his father. When Ned reasonably pointed out to them that she was his wife and that her more flexible schedule actually allowed them to choose pick-up and drop-off times more to their liking than working them around Ned’s availability, they’d relented, but she’d heard Arthur Dayne clearly when he’d told Ned, “Just remember, she’s NOT his mother.”

“You think they’d fight it?” she asked him. “My adopting Jon?”

He shook his head. “They couldn’t win even if they did. I have sole custody of him. They only have visitation. But . . . things are finally somewhat cordial with them, and I don’t want to spend the first year of our daughter’s life in another ugly battle with them.” He sighed. “I just want to enjoy our children, Cat. Our family.”

He sounded sincere. She hoped his objections to her adopting Jon were no more than his wish to avoid unpleasantness with Ashara’s parents and brother. She thought about pointing out that while they couldn’t touch Jon as long as Ned lived, they’d certainly come after him if anything happened to Ned, and if she adopted him, she could legally keep all their children together even then. But he looked sad and upset now, and that’s not what she wanted on their daughter’s birth so she held her tongue. “All right,” she said softly. “Whatever you think best.”

Sansa had begun rooting at her chest, and she began to help the baby latch on to one of her nipples.

“It isn’t best, Catelyn. It’s just . . . it’s just the way things stand for now.”

She nodded. “The others must be dying to get in here, Ned. Go tell them Sansa is perfect, and we’ll let them all in as soon as I finish feeding her.”

He nodded silently, and went to the door, slipping silently out into the corridor and closing it behind them.

Sansa had no idea how to go about nursing, but unlike with Robb, Catelyn now had confidence in her own ability to accomplish the task. She continued to coax the little girl and adjust her position until she finally got her latched on well, and then she leaned back against the pillows behind her as her daughter suckled contentedly. She closed her eyes and didn’t even notice Ned had returned until she heard a sharp intake of breath.

She opened her eyes to see him standing at the foot of the bed, staring at Sansa and her with the most incredible expression on his face.

“What?” she asked him.

“I . . .” he shook his head. “I remember seeing Ashara do that with Jon just after he was born.”

She tried very hard not to resent that he was thinking of Ashara again. He loved the woman. She’d always known that. And she’d died just after Jon was born. Ned wouldn’t be human if he didn’t think of her now.

“I remember thinking as I looked at the two of them that I’d never realized how it felt to love someone until that moment.”

She didn’t say anything. She was afraid to speak and afraid to hear him continue speaking in almost equal measure, unable to do anything but look back into the grey eyes that looked so directly into hers.

“I thought I could never love anyone or anything so much again,” he said softly, and Catelyn tried unsuccessfully to keep the tears from her eyes.

“I was wrong.”

Those words took a moment to penetrate her brain, and she blinked rapidly as she tried to make sense of them.

“I love you, Cat.” He spoke the words almost as he would speak an apology. “I can’t look at the two of you and not say it. I’m sorry. I know that our marriage is . . . that you . . . and I don’t expect . . .”

“I love you!” she blurted out suddenly, finally able to speak around the lump in her throat, interrupting his litany of all the reasons he was sorry he loved her. “I love you, Ned, and I’m not sorry for it. Not one bit.”

He stood there a moment longer, staring at her as if she’d spoken in some language he’d never heard before, and then he was sitting on the bed and his arms were around her and their daughter, and his lips were on hers and she was breathing him in.

 _Ned loves me._ All the things they’d never really talked about seemed inconsequential in the face of that one truth.

 _I love Ned and he loves me. And we both love our children._ The world somehow seemed more right in that moment than it ever had before.

Sansa, discomforted by being somewhat squashed between her parents let go of Catelyn’s nipple and cried loudly.

Ned pulled back slightly and laughed. “Our daughter is telling me I’ve been an idiot.”

“It seems that I have, too,” Catelyn replied almost shyly as she lifted her daughter to her shoulder and patted her back.

“Well, let’s never do it again. Not with each other. I don’t want to waste a moment of our lives, Cat. Not one more moment.”

“We won’t,” she promised him breathlessly. “Go get our sons, Ned. It’s time for them to meet their sister.”

As he left again, she still felt a bit off-balance by this sudden shift in her reality, but she’d never felt happier or more hopeful either. When Ned returned carrying a boy in each arm, trailed by her father and Benjen both wearing wide grins, she smiled widely herself, calling out to her husband and boys, “Hello, my loves!”

Ned smiled back at her, knowing he was included in her in greeting. “Your sons, my love, as requested,” he said to her, depositing them on the foot of her bed. Then the boys were crawling up to get to her and Sansa saying, ‘Mommy!’ and ‘Baby!’ and ‘Merry Christmas!’ and ‘Happy Birthday!’ all at once, and she couldn’t stop laughing.

As Ned sat down beside them in order to keep the excited boys from smothering Sansa and herself, she saw that he was laughing, too, and she realized that whatever else the future held, from this Christmas forward, they would face it completely together.


	3. Christmas Eve 1997--Jon Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mommy and Daddy say that some little boys have two real mommies (or two real daddies in Robb's case), but Uncle Arthur says that's a lie. Sometimes Jon wishes it wasn't so hard to be a Stark and a Dayne at the same time and that he could really understand everything the grown-ups in his life tried to explain. Mostly he wishes he could love his family without having to remember the right words in the right places and that he could just know for certain what makes a mommy a real mommy.

“Don’t forget what we talked about.” 

“I won’t Uncle Arthur. I promise.”

“You’re a good boy, Jon. Your mother is very proud of you. I know she is.”

Jon Stark squirmed a bit in his seat and looked down. Mommy told him she was proud of him all the time. But Uncle Arthur never talked about that Mommy. He always meant his other mommy—Mommy Ashara who was in heaven. Uncle Arthur always talked about her like she was watching Jon all the time which sometimes made him feel funny. Sometimes he didn’t do exactly what he was supposed to, and he was glad when Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Arthur didn’t see him then. It was bad enough that God could see him every time he misbehaved, and according to Uncle Benjen, Santa Claus could, too. He didn’t really want Mommy Ashara to be added to that list.

“I hope I gave you a good Christmas, little man,” Arthur said after Jon didn’t answer.

“It was great, Uncle Arthur!” he said truthfully. “I don’t know what presents are left for Daddy and M . . . Cat to get me now!” He’d almost messed up. He wasn’t allowed to call Mommy anything except Cat at Uncle Arthur’s house. His grandparents hadn’t liked it when he called her Mommy, but they had never gotten as upset about it as Uncle Arthur. They were dead now, though. Grandpa Dayne died when he was five, before Arya was born. And Grandma Dayne had died this past summer.

There had been a bunch of arguments after that, and Uncle Arthur had said a bunch of not very nice things about Mommy and Daddy which he did sometimes when he was angry, but then Daddy had told him he would start going to visit at Uncle Arthur’s house the way he used to visit at his grandparents. His Aunt Allyria lived with Uncle Arthur now, and she wasn’t like his other aunts because even though she was older than him, she wasn’t a grown-up, and she was pretty fun to play with for a girl. Not as fun as Robb, but still fun. And his Uncle Arthur was one of his favorite grown-ups when he wasn’t saying mean things about Mommy and Daddy so Jon was fine with going to his house one weekend every month. It was just kind of annoying when it happened on weekends when fun stuff was happening at home.

He’d been at Uncle Arthur’s for a whole week this time—from the time school got out for winter break until today which was Sansa’s birthday and Christmas Eve. Everybody in the Stark family always called it both. Daddy said that was only fair. Because even if birthday parties happened on a different day than your real birthday (which happened for all of them usually unless their birthday came on a Saturday), everybody got sung to when they woke up and got their special present from Mommy and Daddy on their real birthday. And it wasn’t fair to cheat Sansa out of that even if everybody got their special Christmas Eve presents, too. So Sansa always got two presents today. Sometimes that didn’t feel fair even though Daddy always pointed out that Robb would get presents again in May and he would get presents in June, and Sansa only got presents in December. Arya’s birthday was in August, but she’d only had one so far not counting when she was born so she didn’t really care yet.

Jon had enjoyed hanging out with Uncle Arthur and Allyria. They’d gone lots of fun places, and he’d gotten lots of presents, but it had been a little bit sad without Grandma Dayne. He knew his aunt and uncle missed her, too. And Grandpa. And, as always, he missed his family. His other family. Uncle Arthur always reminded him that he and Allyria were as much his family as the Starks.

“I’m sure they’ll come up with something,” Uncle Arthur said in response to his comment about the presents. “They do try to treat you decently, at least.”

Jon hated when his uncle said things like that. He didn’t understand everything Uncle Arthur said about his parents, but he knew that Uncle Arthur believed his daddy never wanted him as much as Mommy Ashara did and that his mommy never wanted him at all. She just kind of got him when she married Daddy and had to take him. Robb had another daddy in heaven just like he had another mommy in heaven, but that was different because he had been Daddy’s brother and so everybody loved him and there were pictures of him all over their house from when Daddy’s parents had been alive, and Daddy and Robb’s other daddy and Uncle Benjen and their sister (she was dead, too) had been the kids in Winterfell instead of Jon and his brother and sisters. There was only one picture of Mommy Ashara in a frame in the house. It was in his room. Uncle Arthur said that’s because his parents would just as soon forget about her. But Daddy gave him the picture in the frame. He gave him some other, little pictures of her, too, and Mommy helped him put them in a book. He’d tried to tell Uncle Arthur that once, but he didn’t listen. He just shook his head and said what he always did. “Just remember who you are, Jon. You are the son of Ashara Dayne, and that’s something to be proud of.”

Jon did want to be proud of Mommy Ashara. But he didn’t like what Uncle Arthur usually said next. “And you never have to call your father’s wife ‘mother’ regardless of how they try to make you. She isn’t your mother, and she never will be.”

When he was littler, he’d tried to tell Uncle Arthur that he called Mommy ‘Mommy’ because he wanted to, but that hadn’t gone very well, so he quit doing that. Mommy and Daddy did tell him that Mommy was his real mommy—that he could have two real mommies, one in heaven and one here, but Uncle Arthur said that was a lie. Sometimes, it made Jon’s head hurt trying to figure it all out.

“I’ll get one present tonight,” he said, hoping to keep his uncle clear of topics he didn’t like. “Robb and me will each get one and so will baby Arya, but my sister Sansa will get two because it’s her birthday. She always gets two presents on Christmas Eve because of that.” _And it’s fair,_ he reminded himself.

“Half-sister,” Uncle Arthur said.

“Huh?” Jon asked. His mind had drifted to speculating what his Christmas Eve present might be, and he wasn’t paying attention.

“You called Sansa Stark your sister. She’s your half-sister, remember?”

Jon sighed. He hadn’t wanted to talk about this anymore “Yes. Because we have the same dad and different moms.”

“And Robb Stark is your . . .?”

Jon frowned. He wondered if he looked like his daddy then. Mommy always laughed at him when he frowned and called him ‘Mini-Ned.’ “My cousin,” he said grudgingly. “We call each other brothers but we are really cousins.” Those were Uncle Arthur’s words--the words he wanted Jon to say.

He looked up at his uncle who nodded approvingly. Uncle Arthur had talked even more about family relationships this visit than usual, explaining that Allyria was actually more closely related to him than Robb was. That didn’t feel right to Jon. He liked Allyria a lot. Loved her even. But she didn’t feel like a sister or anything. Sansa was his sister even if she wasn’t as much fun as Allyria because she was just turning four today and because she was kind of prissy girly. And Arya was obviously his sister. She even looked like him. And Robb was his brother. His brother and his best friend no matter what Uncle Arthur said.

He’d asked Allyria if Uncle Arthur made her talk about family stuff all the time, and she’d shaken her head. She said she wasn’t being brainwashed into thinking she wasn’t a Dayne so he didn’t have to talk to her about it. When he’d protested that he wasn’t brainwashed either, she’d just shrugged and taken off running because it was his turn to be ‘it.’

He kind of wanted to ask his dad about it. But Uncle Arthur always told him not to discuss these things with his dad or mom (although he didn’t call her that). When he’d told Uncle Arthur it wasn’t right to keep things from his parents, his uncle had laughed. “Well, Catelyn Stark is not your parent, so you owe her nothing, and as for your dad, I’m certain he’s given you instructions on talking to me.”

Daddy had never explicitly told Jon not to tell his uncle anything, but he had explained to him that it made his uncle upset to hear a lot about what his family did together, so that was kind of like instructions. Jon tried not to talk too much about stuff at home with his uncle, anyway, and he figured his father would approve of that, so maybe Uncle Arthur was kind of right. And Mommy had told him very clearly not to tell his uncle about a couple of things he’d overheard his father say when he was angry. Daddy never said mean things about Uncle Arthur to Jon. Not ever. But he had heard him say a few things to Mommy that made him think his father didn’t like his uncle very much.

“I’ll call you tomorrow to wish you Merry Christmas, Jon,” Uncle Arthur said as they pulled into the long drive leading up to Winterfell.

“If nobody answers, we’re gone to Grandp . . . we’re gone to Hoster Tully’s house for Christmas dinner,” he said. Hoster Tully was not really his grandfather. Uncle Arthur said that a lot, and while Grandpa Hoster was nice to him and always got him a present, he didn’t seem to love him like he did the other Stark kids. Aunt Lysa was kind of the same. Sometimes that made Jon worry that Uncle Arthur was right about Mommy not being his real mother. Uncle Edmure was fun, though. He was a lot younger than Mommy, although technically a grown-up. But he acted more like a kid. And he liked Jon just as much as he liked Robb even though Robb looked just like him.

As the car pulled up in front of the house, Jon saw his mother standing there waiting for him with the big bump in her belly showing where his new brother or sister was growing. _Half-brother, half-sister,_ he thought automatically, correcting himself in his uncle’s presence even if he hadn’t spoken out loud.

He unbuckled and jumped out to hug her almost before the car stopped, laughing at how his arms wouldn’t go around her very well.

“Jon Stark,” she said severely, although he could see she had smiley eyes, “What are you doing riding in the front seat? You know you are too young for the front seat even if you are my biggest boy!”

She was hugging him back too tight for him to answer, but he heard his uncle reply, “He had my permission. Don’t chastise him, Catelyn.”

He looked up to see that Mommy’s lips were pressed tightly together in a thin line. He wished Daddy was home. Uncle Arthur wasn’t quite as mean to Mommy when he was around. He wished Uncle Arthur acted like his normal self with Mommy and Daddy. His nice self.

He turned around to see that his uncle had moved to the back of the car and was pulling his bag and his presents from the trunk.

“He shouldn’t be riding in the front seat, Arthur. The airbags are dangerous for a child his size. Technically he’s supposed to be in a booster seat until his birthday.” His mother had her hands on his shoulders and she was squeezing too tightly, but he didn’t know if she realized that.

“Don’t tell me how to take care of my own nephew, Catelyn. It’s none of your concern.”

“It most certainly . . .” His mother stopped speaking suddenly, and turned him to face her again. “Jon, your brother is trying to put together that racetrack the two of you got last Christmas in the playroom, but he’s having a bit of trouble. Why don’t you go help him, and I’ll help your uncle bring in your things.”

Jon knew he was being sent away, but he didn’t really want to listen to Mommy and Uncle Arthur argue and he liked that racetrack a lot. And Robb could never get it set up right. So, he hugged Uncle Arthur tightly and wished him Merry Christmas, nodded when his uncle whispered. “Remember all that I’ve told you,” and ran into the house to find Robb.

For the next ten minutes, his brother pelted him with questions about his visit at his uncle, complaining repeatedly that he’d been gone ‘a million years!’ Most of the time, Jon didn’t even notice that Robb was younger, but sometimes he did almost whine about things. Jon wondered if he’d been whiny when he was a first grader. Second graders were definitely too old to whine. Some of the kids in his class even snickered when they heard someone call their parents ‘Mommy’ or ‘Daddy’ so at school, he had started trying to remember to call them ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’. It was exhausting having to call them so many different names. At least at home, everybody just called them Mommy and Daddy.

“Where’s the screwdriver, Robb?” he asked when they’d finally stopped swapping tales of their time apart and gotten serious about the racetrack assembly.

“Oh! I forgot that!” Robb exclaimed.

Jon shook his head and grinned. “Just start snapping these straight pieces together, and I’ll go get it. We can’t get the new battery in without it.”

He figured the best place to find a screwdriver was in the little room that Daddy called his office. There was a drawer in there that Daddy threw all kinds of things in whenever he was finished using them. But when he reached the office, he saw that the door was almost closed, and he heard his uncle’s voice sounding angry. He didn’t want to hear this so he turned away. His father wasn’t home yet so it must be his mother in there still arguing with Uncle Arthur. He wondered where else he could find a screwdriver. Maybe, he’d go look for the girls until he could get into the office. Arya must be napping, because Mommy never trusted her by herself. Sansa was probably in the playhouse in her room. She loved that thing. He started to go in that direction when he heard his mother’s voice clearly, much more loudly than she ever spoke.

“How dare you say such a thing, Arthur Dayne!”

His uncle’s voice was more muffled, but now he couldn’t help it. He had to hear what they were saying so he turned back toward the office. His uncle’s voice gave way to his mother’s again, still angry, but too soft now for him to make out her words. He tiptoed quietly closer until he could hear what she was saying and caught her in midsentence.

“ . . . he will never be my son! You have no right, Arthur!”

Jon felt cold. He didn’t hear what his uncle answered. Mommy had said he would never be her son. He’d heard her. He’d heard her say the worst thing of all the things that Uncle Arthur ever said. He couldn’t stay there, but he didn’t know where to go. He ran out into the woods behind the house. It was cold, and he didn’t have a coat on, but he didn’t care. He went out to the little treehouse Daddy had built for him and Robb a couple years ago. It wasn’t very high up, and you could see it from the house because he and Robb had only been four and five then. But if you climbed inside it nobody could see you, so he did that. It was still cold, but it was out of the wind.

“Jon!”

He wasn’t certain how long he’d been sitting there in the treehouse when he heard his brother’s voice. _Cousin’s voice. Robb is my cousin._ He didn’t answer. Maybe Robb would go away. He didn’t want to be found. He wished he could stop hearing Mommy say that he would never be her son. He didn’t want his uncle to be right. If Mommy had just been pretending, she was a very good pretender. He’d believed her when she called him her boy. No matter how many times Uncle Arthur said it wasn’t true. _Cat,_ he thought. _When I was little like Arya is, I called her Cat. It’s on the old videos. None of the other kids ever called her Cat._

“Jon? Why are you crying?”

He looked up to see his brother’s, _cousin’s,_ concerned face peering at him from the doorway into the little treehouse.

“I’m not,” he said, wiping his nose with his sleeve and realizing for the first time that he had been. “Go away.”

“Mommy told me to come find you.”

“She’s not my mom.”

Robb looked at him like he was an idiot. “Of course, she is. We couldn’t find you anywhere in the house so she was going to come out here, but then Arya woke up screaming so she told me to come get you.”

“She doesn’t really care where I am.”

Robb climbed up the last step and all the way into the door of the treehouse. It was a bit crowded with both of them inside. They were bigger than when their father had built it. _My father. Not his._

“Why are you acting weird and dumb all of a sudden?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because I’m your brother.”

Robb looked at him with his stupid big blue eyes that looked like Mommy’s. _He will never be my son!_ He looked really worried, and Jon realized none of this was Robb’s fault. Robb wasn’t pretending. He really wanted to be Jon’s brother. Even though he wasn’t.

“You know that’s not really true, don’t you, Robb?” he said sadly. “We’re not real brothers. We’re just cousins.”

“No we’re not,” Robb said stubbornly. “We started out cousins, but we turned into brothers.”

“You can’t turn into brothers, stupid. That’s not how it works.”

“I’m not stupid, and that is how it works. You have another mommy in heaven and I have another daddy in heaven but our _real_ mommy and daddy are the ones we have now. Because they love us and take care of us and that makes them real.”

 _He will never be my son._ “No it doesn’t. It can just be pretend.”

“It’s not pretend! It’s the realest thing ever. That’s what Daddy says about my adoption paper. It doesn’t make Daddy Brandon go away or not be real. It just tells people that Daddy is just as real. And I’m his son. And your brother. See?”

Suddenly, Jon did see. He felt stupid for not seeing it before. Daddy had adopted Robb right after Sansa was born. He didn’t really remember much about it. He was only like three or four. But he knew about it. But Mommy, _Cat,_ had never adopted him. She didn’t want to make it real. She was just pretending. He thought of all the times she’d read to him, taken care of him when he was sick, kissed him goodnight, teased him about making faces like Daddy’s. He didn’t want to think about those things. It made him want to cry again. She was just pretending. She was a really good pretender, though, and he hated her for that.

“Go away, Robb.”

“No. You have to come inside with me. Mommy said . . .”

“Cat isn’t my mother! She’s your mother! Now go away or I will knock you out of this treehouse!”

Robb stared at him for a minute, and then his lip started to shake a little like Sansa’s did when she was about to cry. Robb didn’t cry, though. He just stood there looking sad and then left without saying anything else.

A little bit after that, Cat came out. She could look into the tree house without even climbing because it was barely off the ground. “Jon, honey? Will you come inside and talk to me?”

He shook his head. She climbed up one step and then two so that her head was up just a bit higher than his as he sat there. He wondered if her big belly made it hard to climb treehouse steps.

“Jon, I know you’re upset about something, but I need you to come in the house now. Whatever your uncle said to you is . . .”

“My uncle said you’re not my mother and it’s true!”

“What?” She shook her head slowly. “Jon, Arthur Dayne loved his sister very much. It breaks his heart to see her child growing up without her, but he is a grown-up who should know better than to let his own grief and anger hurt you.”

Jon shook his head. “You’re a grown-up! You should know better than to pretend things that aren’t true.”

“Whatever your uncle told you, he’s wrong, Jon. Your father and I love all of you children. We’re your parents and we . . .”

“No! No, you aren’t. You don’t want me for a son, and you don’t have to pretend anymore because I don’t want you for a mother, either! If my real mother hadn’t died, Daddy would never have married you and I’d be a lot happier and so would Daddy and my real mom!”

She stared at him, and he thought she looked an awful lot like Robb had when he’d yelled at him. Only her lip didn’t shake. She just bit it for a moment, and then she said in a kind of shaky voice, “Jon, I am very sorry that you are angry and upset right now, but you will come into the house.”

“I don’t have to do what you say.”

“I’m afraid you do, son.”

“I’m not your son, and you can’t make me call you my mother.”

“I won’t make you call me anything, Jon. But whatever else you believe at this moment, I am the adult in charge of this house and you are a seven year old child. You will come into the house right now before you freeze to death.”

He looked at her a moment. “Okay, Cat. I’ll come inside.” He used his angry voice, but she didn't say anything about it.

She looked more sad than angry as she stepped down to let him come out. She started to put a hand on his shoulder, but he jerked away so she just followed him silently into the house. 

“Go on up to your room, Jon,” she said quietly. “I’m going to call your father to come now and talk to you.” 

“I don’t care if I’m in trouble. I know you’re not my mother and you can’t make me say you are. Don’t pretend you care.”

She sighed. “You aren’t in trouble. And I do care. But I think you need to speak with your father now. And I hope you’ll tell him everything you feel.”

She looked at him and then turned to go into Dad’s office. His uncle wasn’t there anymore, of course. He started to turn toward his room, but instead stayed to listen when he heard her pushing the buttons on the phone to call his father.

“Ned? I need you to come home . . . No, it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Christmas, but I need you home now.”

Her voice sounded funny. Kind of high and thin.

“Our son needs you, dammit . . . Jon . . . Yes, he brought him home, and then . . .”

Mommy, Cat, made a kind of choking sound and stopped talking for a moment.

“Just come home, Ned. I’ll tell you all of it when you get here . . . .To hell with Robert. He’s a bastard for having you come in on Christmas Eve at all. Tell him you’re finished.”

Mommy, _Cat,_ didn’t usually say words like hell. She must really be mad at him.

“Please, Ned. I need you. Just come home.” She said all that very quietly, and then stopped talking. After another few minutes, she started making some other kind of sounds, and it took Jon a minute to realize she was crying. He hadn’t thought grown-ups cried for real, not like kids. But she sounded just like Sansa when she was having a really big cry. Jon wondered vaguely where his sisters, _half-sisters,_ and brother, _cousin,_ were, but he went on up to his room without looking for them.

He got the big framed picture of Mommy Ashara off his dresser and brought it to his bed along with the book of little pictures that Cat had helped him put together. She had black hair and really pretty eyes that looked sort of purple. Daddy had said everybody thought she was beautiful. Of course, Daddy called Cat beautiful all the time, too. They didn’t look anything alike—Mommy Ashara and Cat—and Jon wondered which one Daddy really thought was the most beautiful. He probably wouldn’t answer the question even if he asked him. Daddy would never answer questions he called rude, and Jon was pretty sure he’d call that a rude question. She looked happy in most of the pictures. Most were by herself although some were with Uncle Arthur and two were with Allyria looking smaller than Arya so probably not even a one year old yet. Only one was with Daddy. That was his favorite. He’d asked why there weren’t more of them together, and Daddy said that Mommy Ashara never liked to pose for pictures—that most of the ones he had were pictures he’d taken of her when she didn’t know it. His dead Uncle Brandon, Robb’s real daddy, had taken the one of the two of them together while neither of them knew it. They were sitting in the big room downstairs in Winterfell, and her belly was big like Cat’s was now, and Daddy had his hand on it. He was smiling at the belly bump, and she was smiling at Daddy. Jon knew the bump was him, and it made him feel funny to think about being here in his house, in Winterfell, with both of his real parents before he was even born.

He heard a car pull up. His bedroom was at the front of the house so he ran to the window to see his father stop his car right in front of the door and almost run into the house without going to the garage to park it. He wondered how much trouble he was in and walked back to his bed to lie down and look at the ceiling. He thought about Mommy Ashara looking at him from heaven like God and wondered if she’d be mad at him for yelling at Robb and Cat or proud of him for not wanting a pretend mommy anymore. He figured his father and uncle would answer him differently on that.

After what seemed like a very long time, he heard a knock on his bedroom door. “Jon? It’s Daddy. Can I come in, son?”

“Yeah,” he said without getting up.

“Hey, bud,” Daddy said when he came in. “Sounds like you’ve been having a rough day.”

Jon sat up on his bed and shrugged.

“You upset your mother quite a lot.”

“She’s not my mother,” he said.

“I beg to differ, but we’ll leave that alone for a moment.”

He came over and sat down beside him, picking up the framed picture of his mother. “She certainly was a beautiful woman,” he said softly. “Your eyes are shaped like hers, you know.”

Jon didn’t know that. Everyone said he looked exactly like his father. He thought about Mommy, _Cat,_ calling him ‘Mini-Ned’ and he tried to get angry instead of sad. Angry hurt less.

“I thought I looked just like you.”

His father laughed. 

“You do look a lot like me, Jon. And for people who never met Ashara, or didn’t know her well, it’s hard to see the little bits of you that are hers. But they are there.”

“Because she’s my mother. My real mother.”

“Ah. I see. ‘Real’ is a funny word, you know. Ashara gave birth to you. She loved you before you were ever born—enough to bring you into the world regardless of what anyone said or however scared she might be. And she loved you beyond all reason once you were born. I wish I had a picture of her holding you so I could show you that. But I was a bit overwhelmed by your arrival myself, and I couldn’t stop just looking at the two of you long enough to take pictures. And then she was gone.”

“Were you sad?”

“I was many things. Shocked, angry, lonely. And yes—very, very sad. But I was talking about the word ‘real’, Jon. Ashara is gone. But that doesn’t make her less real. She was your mother. She’ll always be your mother, and whatever Arthur Dayne says, neither Catelyn nor myself would ever take that from you.”

Jon frowned. “But you don’t have pictures of her all over the place like you do Robb’s real daddy.”

His father frowned slightly and hesitated before saying, “Robb’s birth father lived here, Jon. He was my brother. Winterfell was his home. So, of course, he is in the family pictures here. Ashara never lived here.”

“She came here though. She’s right downstairs in this picture--in the big room where we have the Christmas tree!” Jon flipped the book open to the picture of his parents and himself as a big belly lump.

“Yes,” his father said, smiling fondly at the picture. “She came here many times, especially in the months just before you were born.” He looked at the picture a bit longer in silence, and then closed the book. “But it wasn’t her home. Surely, you can see the difference. If you would like more pictures of her, I can see if the Daynes have any good ones I could copy. This is your room, and you can put whatever pictures you like in it. Your room is your special place to keep reminders of people you love and people who love you.” He paused. “And if it is important to you, we can put one up in the big hallway with the family pictures as well. Winterfell is your home, and Ashara is part of your family.”

“And yours,” Jon insisted.

“Well, I wanted her to be. She kept turning me down when I asked her to marry me,” his father said with a small laugh.

“But you loved her. Didn’t you?”

“I loved her,” he said. “Never more than on the day you were born.”

“Then how come you don’t keep her picture in your room, too?”

His father kind made a choking noise then and shook his head. “That’s one you’ll understand better when you’re older, Jon. Suffice it to say there are no pictures of my brother Brandon in my room either. You see, my room does not belong only to me or only to Catelyn. It’s our space together. We keep reminders there of the things and people we both love together, and of course of each other because we love each other very much.”

“Do you love her as much as you loved my real mother?” Jon asked.

“Do you love Arya as much as you love Sansa? Or Robb?”

“I . . . that’s not fair! They’re all different!”

His father raised a brow at him. “Indeed. But don’t ask impossible questions if you do not wish to answer them yourself. Now, about this word real.”

Jon sighed, wishing his father could just answer questions with just yes or no more often.

“Catelyn did not give birth to you. She didn’t meet you until you were around six months old. But she has been in your life continuously since then. She changed your diapers. She cut the crust off your bread because you refused to eat it otherwise. She cut grilled cheese sandwiches into triangles, never rectangles or squares, because you liked them better that way. She sang to you and read to you and held you tightly in the middle of the night every time you had a bad dream. She’s never missed one of your baseball or basketball games. She knows your favorite color, your favorite foods, your favorite television shows, and favorite hideouts. She worries about you, dreams about you, and prays for you.” He paused and looked at Jon very seriously. “All of those things are real, Jon. You know that to be true. Ashara is your real mother because she gave birth to you. Catelyn is your real mother because she’s been loving and raising you for seven years now. Both of these statements are true, and neither takes away from the other.”

Jon shook his head. “Cat had to do those things. And she has to know all that stuff about me to pretend so good.”

“Pretend? Why would she pretend anything? And what precisely do you think she’s been pretending?”

Jon swallowed and answered in a very small voice. “That she wanted me to be her real son.”

His father looked at him for a moment and then he stood up, walked across the room and actually slammed his fist down on it, making the things on it jump. “I will murder Arthur Dayne! I swear to God I will kill that man!”

“It’s not Uncle Arthur’s fault!” Jon said hurriedly. “She said it! Cat did! I heard her!”

His father turned back toward him with furious eyes that looked like storm clouds.

“You heard your mother say what?” he asked in a voice that sounded frighteningly like a growl.

Jon thought hard so he’d say exactly what he heard. “He will never be my son! She kind of yelled it. And then she said . . .” He closed his eyes and thought again. “You have no right, Arthur!”

“Jon, that’s what your uncle was saying to her.”

“No, I heard her say it. I swear.” 

“She told me they were having some sort of argument about your sitting in the front seat.” His father looked at him for confirmation.

He nodded. “You know how you always say we can’t sit in the front because of the airbags? Uncle Arthur says that’s stupid, and I’m a big boy, and it’s fine for me to sit in the front with him.”

His father frowned. “Yes, and apparently he contradicted your mother about that very thing in front of you when he dropped you off?”

Jon nodded again. “She was mad. She started to say something, but . . . she stopped and made me go play with Robb.”

“Because whatever she needed to say to Arthur was not for your ears. But you decided you needed to listen anyway, did you?”

“No! I only wanted a screwdriver, but then I heard her scream at him.”

“That you would never be her son?”

“No. The really loud thing she yelled came first. Um, it was . . . How dare you say such a thing, Arthur Dayne!”

“Ah. And that’s when you decided to listen?”

Jon nodded guiltily.

“But you didn’t hear your uncle’s end of the conversation?”

Jon shook his head. “He wasn’t as loud. I couldn’t even hear everything that Mom . . .Cat . . .said.”

His father frowned at the correction of Mommy to Cat. “Would you like to hear what your uncle said to your mother, Jon? He told her that she had never been and would never be your mother. That she wasn’t good enough to be a housekeeper, much less a parent, to his sister’s child, and that he would thank her to keep her nose out of his relationship with you.” 

Jon could believe his uncle said those things. He wished he couldn’t because they were very mean things, and Uncle Arthur shouldn’t have said them even if Mommy had only been pretending. But Uncle Arthur, who was always nice and wonderful with him, really seemed to hate Mommy and Daddy. _Cat and Daddy._

“Have you nothing to say about what your uncle said?” his father asked him.

“He shouldn’t have said those things. That was mean. But . . . I still heard her . . .”

His father sighed. “She was angry, Jon. She’s considered herself your mother for a very long time, and to hear that man tell her she could never be your mother . . .” He shook his head. “I fear she lost her temper, and that’s likely when you heard her shout at him that first time. Had he any decency he would have apologized when she called him out on it, but instead, he told her that however much she tried to manipulate you, you would never be her son.”

Jon looked at him. “What’s manipulate?” he asked.

His father frowned, trying to think of a way to explain it, and Jon remembered his conversation with Allyria. 

“Is it like brainwash?”

His father almost smiled. “I suppose it could be considered similar. What made you think of that word?”

He looked down. “Allyria said Uncle Arthur has to talk to me about family all the time because I’m being brainwashed that I’m not a Dayne.”

“Ah. Well then, yes. That’s precisely what he accused your mother of. She didn’t take that very kindly. She told him to get out of her home. That he could not come here after she has loved you like her own for all these years and tell her that you would never be her son. That he had no right to do that.” Daddy stopped talking until Jon looked up. Then he said, “It would seem you heard only the last bit.”

Jon looked down again. It could have happened like that. What he’d heard in the office. Mommy had sounded mad. Madder than he’d ever heard her. 

“Would you like me to go get your mother so you can apologize for hurting her feelings, Jon? She’s been crying since she found you in your treehouse. She even sent the other three kids over to the Cerwyns on Christmas Eve so you and I could talk and they wouldn't have to watch her cry!”

Jon felt bad about that, but something still bothered him. Not something he'd heard from Uncle Arthur over and over, but from Robb today.

“Why didn’t she ever adopt me then?” he said as his own tears broke free and he started crying harder than a stupid first grader, as hard as four-year-old Sansa ever did even. “If she really wants to be my mommy, why didn’t she adopt me? You adopted Robb! He said it’s so everybody knows you’re his real dad! Why doesn’t she want people to know she’s my real mom?”

For a moment, his father just looked at him in silence with a rather horrified expression on his face. Then he said, “God damn me to hell!” which nearly shocked Jon out of crying. He heard his father say bad words more often than his mother, but that was a really bad thing to say.

Then his father went to the door and flung it open. “Catelyn!” he shouted. “Come up here, please.”

Jon wasn’t certain how he felt about Mommy right now, but he didn’t want Daddy to yell at her. He tried to get his tears to stop completely, and then his mother came running into the room rather out of breath. Her eyes looked red and puffy.

“Jon? Are you all right? Ned? What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

Jon watched her eyes going back and forth between him and his father, but he couldn’t say anything. He thought if he opened his mouth, he might cry again. And he was almost eight years old. He was too big to cry.

“Ned, talk to me,” Mommy said almost desperately.

“Our son overheard a small portion of your conversation with Arthur Dayne earlier and misunderstood it. That misunderstanding has been corrected.” His father’s voice still sounded rather hard and almost cold.

“And?” his mother asked warily.

His father put his face in his hands a moment and then looked up at his mother. “He knows he was wrong in what he thought about that conversation, but . . . he wants to know why I adopted Robb and you did not adopt him.”

“Oh, Ned,” his mother said softly, reaching out toward his father. 

His father moved away from her. “Considering the fault is mine, I thought he deserved to hear the tale from you.”

“You can’t blame yourself. The whole situation has always been . . .”

“Tell him, Cat. Tell him how you wanted to become his mother in the eyes of the law when he was three years old. Exactly four years ago, in fact. On the day Sansa was born.”

Jon’s eyes got wide then. Mommy looked at him and then took Daddy’s hand and led him to sit down once more on Jon’s bed. She sat down herself on Jon’s other side so he was between them.

“When Sansa was born, your father told me he wanted to adopt Robb if it was all right with me,” she said softly. “Of course, it was all right, and we started the paperwork just after the first of the year. You know about that.”

Jon nodded. 

“When he first asked me, I told him that I wanted to adopt you as well, but he was worried that it would hurt your grandparents’ feelings. That they might think we were trying to erase your birth mother, their daughter, from your life. It was always hard on them to see me with you, Jon. I think they always imagined their daughter in my place.”

“But . . . you didn’t worry about that with Robb’s first daddy?”

His father reached out and ruffled his hair. “Brandon’s parents were my parents, Jon. And they were dead besides. Only Benjen was left from my family. And he’s Robb’s uncle whether I’m his father or Brandon is or both of us. So that was never a concern.”

“You know your uncle doesn’t like us very much, baby,” his mother said softly. “Your grandparents were never quite as angry, but they did want you very much to be theirs. When you were a tiny baby, they even asked about raising you themselves.”

They had done more than ask about it. Jon had heard enough from various grown-ups in the family over the years to know his grandparents had taken him for a while, and Daddy had to fight with them to get him back, but he didn’t know the details. His parents never talked about it to him.

“So you didn’t adopt me just so Grandma and Grandpa Dayne wouldn’t get upset?”

“More or less,” Mommy said.

“I convinced your mother it would make too many people angry,” his father said. “And she didn’t need a piece of paper to be your ‘real’ mother to use that word you’re so fond of.”

His mother looked puzzled at that, but Jon nodded slowly. “Okay. But what if I want a piece of paper like Robb’s?” 

“Oh, Jon, I do consider myself your mother, sweetheart, and I always will, regardless of what your uncle or anyone else feels about it. Even if you stopped considering yourself my son, I’d still feel like your mother. I can’t ever stop that.”

Jon nodded again. “I know. I believe you. But . . . I don’t want Uncle Arthur to say it anymore. I want a piece of paper like Robb’s.” He remembered then telling his uncle that he’d gotten him so many presents, his parents wouldn’t have anything left to give him. But they did. And he wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything. “I want to be adopted for Christmas. I want the paper that says Mommy is my real mommy forever and ever.”

His mother grabbed him and hugged him tightly, and she was laughing and crying at the same time. “Then you shall have it, sweetheart. It will take us probably into next year to get it filed and finalized, but you shall have it.”

“Cat, are you . . .”

“Don’t you dare mention Arthur Dayne and his sensibilities to me, Ned. I don’t give a damn about them after today.”

“I don’t either,” he said, laughing. “I was going to ask you if you were ready for me to go fetch the other children back from the Cerwyns so we can get started on Sansa’s birthday and Christmas Eve.”

“Oh!” she said, still not letting go of Jon. “Yes! Please do!” His father stood up. “And Ned? I love you.”

“Good. I love you, too.” His father bent to kiss her on the mouth. One of the kisses that usually made Robb and him make gagging faces. But he decided he didn’t mind it so much right now. His parents loved each other and they loved him. That’s how it was supposed to be. It felt right and safe and good.

He stayed there leaning against his mother after his father left. “I’m sorry I made you cry, Mommy.”

“It’s not your fault, Jon. But if you ever feel scared or angry or uncertain again, I want you to come to one of us right away, okay?”

“Okay. But what if I’m scared about how I feel? Or I don’t even know how I feel?”

His mother began laughing so hard, tears formed in her eyes even though she wasn’t crying. Finally, she settled down enough to say, “Well, Mini-Ned, that’s when you need to come talk about it most of all. It took your father a very long time to learn that, and, to be fair, myself as well. My wish for all you children is that you learn how to be open with the people you love sooner than we did.”

Jon wasn’t certain he understood all of that, but he liked her calling him Mini-Ned again. Suddenly, he felt a jab from her belly into his as he nestled against her.

“The baby kicked me!” 

“He or she’s just telling you Merry Christmas.”

“I kinda hope it’s a brother. Or else the girls will be winning.”

She laughed again. Mommy had a pretty laugh. He liked to hear it. “It isn’t a competition.”

Thinking of her pretty laugh made him think about how he’d wondered earlier which mommy his father thought was prettier. Which mother his father had loved more. He put his hand against the place on Mommy’s belly the kick had come from and thought about his father doing the same to Mommy Ashara’s belly when he was the one inside kicking.

He wondered if Mommy Ashara was watching him now and if it made her sad that he wanted Mommy to adopt him and be his real mommy forever and ever.

“Mommy?” he asked, not looking up at her face.

“Yes?”

“Do you think Mommy Ashara will be sad in heaven that I want you to adopt me?”

She was quiet for a moment. “No,” she said finally. She set him a little ways away from her so she could look at him better. “I loved your Uncle Brandon a lot. And I know he loved me. When I found out that Robb was growing in my tummy, I cried and cried because Brandon was dead and Robb would never know his father. But then I fell in love with your daddy. And a part of me felt badly about it because I didn’t want Brandon to think he’d been forgotten. I didn’t want him to be sad because I had a new love and Robb had a new father.”

“Really? You thought about that?”

“I did. But I realized that I was treating Brandon more unfairly by worrying about it. By not letting myself enjoy loving Ned with all my heart or letting Robb love Ned as his father.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, Brandon loved me, like I said. And I know he would have loved Robb as well. Somewhere, up there in heaven, he loves us still. And when you love someone, you want them to be happy, Jon. You want them to be as happy as they possibly can be. Marrying Ned, having you as my son, and Ned as Robb’s father, and then Ned and I having Sansa, Arya, and this new baby—that’s what has made me happier than I ever dreamed I could be. Brandon doesn’t get to have happiness in this world any more, whether I’m happy or miserable. So the least I can do for him is see to it that the people he loved are happy. And I know in my heart that makes him smile.”

“You really think so?”

“I really do. I honor his love for me by filling my life with as much love and happiness as I can find.”

“And you think Mommy Ashara loves me like that, too?”

“I know she does, Jon.”

“I’m glad.”

He got up and put framed picture of Mommy Ashara on his dresser and the book of pictures in its drawer.

“Can I have a picture of you to put on my dresser?”

“You see me every day, sweetheart,” she said with a smile.

“You see Daddy every day. And all of us. But all our pictures are in your room. Besides, I want both my mommies in here.”

“I’ll get you one. Maybe you can take some pictures of me this Christmas and pick the one you like best.”

“I like to take pictures when Daddy lets me use his camera. But I don’t have my own camera.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said thoughtfully. “What was I thinking?”

Before he could ask her more about the sneaky look on her face, he heard Robb shouting from downstairs. “Come one, come all to Princess Sansa’s fourth birthday celebration! Everybody gather round!”

Mommy laughed. “Let’s hurry down before your brother aggravates your father by adding the rest of his summons.”

Jon laughed, and as they headed to the staircase hand in hand, he and Mommy both laughed even harder when Robb added, “Everybody come celebrate Princess Sansa so we can get on to the good stuff like Christmas!” immediately followed by their father’s admonition of “Robb Brynden Stark, you stop that right now! No one rushes you through your birthday!”

As he descended the stairs with his hand in his mother’s Jon didn’t care if he looked like a baby. He didn’t care that Sansa got to open two presents or even if she got to open ten. He had his family. Mommy was going to adopt him so everybody including Uncle Arthur would know she was his real mommy, and Mommy Ashara was smiling at him from heaven because he had so many people to love.

“Happy Birthday, Sansa!” he yelled as he let go of his mother’s hand to sprint down the stairs and pick up his four year old sister to spin her while she squealed. She wasn’t nearly as easy to pick up as Arya who toddled over to him then, so he picked up his baby sister and spun her around two times yelling, “Merry Christmas!” at the top of his lungs. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his father put his arm around his mother. They were both smiling at him and neither one of them fussed at him for picking up his sisters. As Robb started chanting, “Presents! Presents! Presents!” Jon grinned back at his parents and decided this might just be the best Christmas he’d ever had.


	4. Christmas Eve 2005--Arya Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is shaping up to be the worst Christmas of nine-and-a-half year old Arya Stark's life. Mom and Dad have never been like this before, and it scares her. And no matter how much Jon and Robb (and even Sansa who thinks she's such an adult just because she's in middle school now) try to reassure her and say everything's fine, she knows they're worried, too. She isn't stupid. And even though her parents and siblings drive her crazy half the time, her family is the one thing she's always been the most certain of. It terrifies her that she isn't quite so certain anymore.

Arya Stark grinned as she tip-toed down the hallway toward her sister’s bedroom, keeping a hand on her littlest brother to remind him not to make noise. Bran would be quiet without a reminder. He was the best of all of them at sneaking—even better than Arya. Not that she’d ever tell him that. Robb was yawning and looking pretty stupid with his hair all messed up. He’d actually told her to do the song without him when she went to get him out of bed, but he’d moved quick enough when she threatened to sic Mom on him. 

Mom was already standing outside Sansa’s door by Jon who had one of his cameras ready. Jon had way more cameras than anybody could possibly need, but he said they were all good for different situations. Arya figured he’d probably get another one tonight. His Christmas Eve gift had been a camera or something that went with a camera pretty much every Christmas she could remember except for last year when he and Robb both got Razr phones. Camera junk seemed pretty boring to her, but it made Jon happy. He looked poised to catch the birthday girl’s face when they burst in on her. Mom didn’t look as happy as she normally did about these early morning birthday songs, but Arya chose not to think about that at the moment, concentrating instead on how loud Sansa would scream at having her picture taken in her pajamas with her hair all messy.

Ordinarily, they’d all get yelled at for disturbing Princess Sansa’s beauty sleep or taking pictures that she wasn’t all posed for, but no one got to escape the birthday song wake-up call on their day. Not even Sansa. Even if Dad wasn’t here to head it up, Mom had refused to let the little family ritual slide. While Arya figured Sansa (who could sleep FOREVER if left to her own devices) would have been perfectly happy to skip it, Arya considered this parent approved torturing of her “Oh, I’m so grown up now—I’m in middle school!” sister a sort of early Christmas present for the rest of the family this year. The anticipation of Sansa’s face when Rickon absolutely screamed the Happy Birthday song directly into her ear in no particular key whatsoever almost made her almost forget how worried she was about her parents. Almost.

Before that worry could invade her brain any further, Mother lifted a finger to her lips and slowly opened the door to Sansa’s room. As she tiptoed in after Jon, Arya spotted her sister lying sound asleep with her mouth hanging open with drool on her cheek and her red hair a tangled mess on her pillow. As the other kids filed in silently behind Arya to surround Sansa’s bed, Jon raised his camera to snap a sleeping picture, but Mom frowned at him and shook her head. Jon looked at Arya and shrugged, lowering the camera. He’d be allowed to shoot her when she woke up, at least. Mom and Dad actually kept a photo album of all their birthday wake-ups. Everybody except Sansa thought it was funny. Even Sansa used to think it was funny. Until she lost interest in everything except boys and make-up and basically turned into an idiot over the past year or so. She’d always been a little prissy, but now she was just awful.

Rickon ran right up beside Sansa’s pillow as expected, but Mom backed him off at least enough not to burst her eardrum. Rickon had had the last birthday, turning four the past October, and he’d started jumping on his bed and singing louder than all of them with a big grin on his face when they’d come to wake him. When Mom gave him a signal now, the littlest Stark shouted “Happy Birthday, Sansa!” at the top of his lungs, Sansa shot about three feet in the air and shrieked, and everyone else started singing while Jon snapped pictures.

Sansa shrieked again when she saw Jon’s camera and lay back down, pulling her pillow firmly over her face causing Arya to laugh so hard she couldn’t even sing. As everyone else finished the song, Sansa groaned from beneath her pillow and said, “Really, Daddy, do we still have to do this every year? Can’t we stop when we’re out of elementary school?”

This protest was met with an awkward silence, and Arya stole a look at her mother’s face which appeared sad and angry in equal measure.

“Oh!” Sansa exclaimed suddenly, pushing the pillow away from her face to look up at Mother herself. “I’m sorry! It’s just that Daddy’s always here, and I . . . I forgot for a minute.”

“It’s all right, Sansa. You know he would have been here if he could. I’m afraid there aren’t any planes flying at all in this weather.” 

Sansa frowned slightly, but she covered it up more quickly than Arya could have. She knew as well as the rest of them that Mom hadn’t wanted Daddy to go in the first place.

“Happy Birthday, Princess,” Mom said with a smile, using their father’s nickname for Sansa and bending to kiss her forehead. Their mother was even better than Sansa at covering over unpleasant things. “I’ll get these heathens out of here so you can get dressed for breakfast. What shall it be this morning, birthday girl?”

Sansa stretched like a cat and then hissed like one at Jon when he took another picture. “Stop it, Jon! I’m sure you already have enough awful pictures of me!”

Jon laughed. “They’re all great pictures, Sans. You’ll see.”

Robb laughed as well. “Just be grateful Mom stopped him from snapping one of you sound asleep with your tongue hanging out and drool running down your face!”

“Robb!” Mom said sharply. “Breakfast, Sansa?”

“Um, do you have blueberries?”

Their mother nodded. Sansa ordered the same thing every year so naturally Catelyn Stark would have procured everything she needed for her homemade blueberry pancakes long before today given that the big snow had been well forecast. Arya knew the lemon birthday cake that Sansa always requested was already baked and ready.

“Of course I do. Blueberry pancakes then?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m on it,” Mom said with rather forced cheerfulness. “Now scoot, the rest of you! Let your sister get out of bed in peace.” She shooed them all out ahead of her, but Arya managed to scoot back around and remain in Sansa’s room when everyone else was gone.

“Really, Sansa? You FORGOT Dad isn’t here?”

She sighed as she sat up. “I know, I know. But it is pretty shocking waking up like that, you know. And this always has been Daddy’s thing.” She pouted just a little. “He’s never missed my birthday before.”

“That’s because it’s on Christmas Eve. He never takes trips over Christmas. Well, until now. I don’t think he’s missed Rickon’s yet, but he will. He’s missed all the rest of ours at least once.”

Sansa frowned. “I think he’s gone now more than he used to be. I don’t like it, Arya, and I don’t think Mom does, either.”

“Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.” Arya didn’t hide the sarcasm.

“Well you don’t have to be a little bitch about it.”

“Sansa!”

“Oh, shit! I mean, shoot! I didn’t mean anything by that, Arya. That’s just the way girls talk at school. Please don’t tell Mother.”

Arya sighed and sat down on her sister’s bed. It seemed to her a mean and dumb way for girls to talk, but Sansa would say she didn’t know anything because she was just in fourth grade so she just said, “I won’t tell.”

Sansa looked at her for a moment. “What’s wrong, Arya? Besides Daddy being snowed in at White Harbor for Christmas, I mean.”

Sometimes Sansa wasn’t so bad. Arya decided to tell her. “I think Daddy’s going to be gone a lot more, Sans.”

“Why would you think that? Mom was so upset when he had to go on that five day trip just before Christmas. I think he’ll want to stay home and make it up to her.”

“Six day trip,” Arya muttered. “As of today, it’s turned into a six day trip and it’ll probably be more by the time he gets home.”

“Well, that’s the weather. That’s not his fault. Even Mom knows that . . .”

“Mom knows that if he’d told Myrcella’s dad no in the first place, he’d be home now! Her dad never wants to be around his family and he wants our dad to be just like him!”

“Oh dear, you’ve been talking to Myrcella Baratheon again, haven’t you? She’s a sweet girl, Arya, and very pretty. But she’s the biggest gossip I’ve ever seen.”

“Says Jeyne Poole’s best friend.”

Surprisingly, Sansa laughed. “Okay. She’s tied with Jeyne for biggest gossip. But what has Myrcella been telling you now?”

“Her parents are getting divorced.”

Sansa’s eyes went wide for only a moment, and then she shrugged. “Well, I suppose it isn’t much of a surprise. I mean, they hate each other, don’t they? Robb says they only got married because Mrs. Baratheon was pregnant with Joffrey.” She frowned then, looking alarmingly like their mother. “I don’t think this is really an appropriate conversation for you, though.”

“Don’t be stupid, Sansa! I’m not Bran or Rickon. I know where babies come from. And I know both of Myrcella’s parents are awful, but Dad and her dad are still really good friends. And her dad’s his boss. And Myrcella says her dad is planning all kinds of new expansions for the business—out of the country even.”

“Out of the country?”

“Yeah. So he’ll be traveling all over the place all the time, and she says she’s glad about that because she kind of hates him right now. But . . . he’ll want Dad to go. You know that.”

“Arya, Daddy isn’t going to agree to spend all his time out of the country. Whatever Mr. Baratheon says.”

“And on these trips he takes? He has women come, Sansa. They don’t even work for him. Not at the company anyway. Myrcella says he pays them to . . . do stuff . . . with him and his friends.” It was hard for Arya to think about the kind of stuff Myrcella meant. The whole business seemed kind of gross to her. She didn’t like to think about her parents like that at all, but to think of her dad that way with some nasty woman Mr. Baratheon paid . . . well that was even worse.

“Arya Stark,” Sansa said, apparently channeling Mom again. “You know perfectly well Dad would never do anything like that. Not in a million years. He’s nothing like Myrcella’s father.”

“I know,” Arya said grudgingly. “But I don’t think Mom would like knowing there are women like that around whenever he goes out of town with Mr. Baratheon.”

Sansa didn’t say anything to that.

“She was really mad when he left, Sansa. You heard them yelling at each other. I never heard them yell at each other before.”

Sansa shifted around as if she was uncomfortable. “All married people fight, Arya. You should hear my friends talk about their parents! We’re just not used to it because Mom and Daddy hardly ever do it. So it seems worse when they do. That’s all.”

“I guess.” But she couldn’t stop thinking about her class at school. There were twenty-two kids in the class. Seven of them had parents who’d been divorced so long they couldn’t remember ever living with both of them, one boy said his mom wouldn’t even tell him who his dad was, and one little girl who never spoke much had a mom who died over the summer. Two more kids had parents who got divorced last year and three said their parents were getting divorced now. Apparently getting divorced took a long time. Arya had thought you just had to go to the courthouse and say you didn’t want to be married anymore, but Myrcella had laughed about that. Oh, Myrcella. She made four kids whose parents were getting divorced now. That made fifteen kids out of twenty-two who didn’t live with both of their parents. And Arya wasn’t completely sure about a couple of the rest. She didn’t know every kid in her class well enough to know about their parents. But it was way more than half anyway, and that was scary. A lot of those parents seemed perfectly nice, and when she’d seen them together they’d been perfectly nice to each other. Well, not Mr. and Mrs. Baratheon, but the others she knew. What if Mom and Dad got mad enough at each other to get divorced?

“I can hear you thinking, Arya. Seriously, though, you don’t have to worry about this. Mom and Dad . . . well they’re different from just regular parents. They actually love each other,” Sansa said.

That took Arya by surprise. “Don’t all parents love each other? I mean that’s why you get married, isn’t it?” 

“Well, some love each other more than others. And I guess some fall out of love. But not Mom and Dad. Don’t worry about it. They’re like one of those couples in love songs.”

Sansa and her dumb songs. Before she could reply, however, the piercing, high pitched tone of the smoke alarm rang out from the hall.

“What the hell?” That was Jon running to see what had set it off. “Get a coat and go down to the front door,” he barked at them as he went past Sansa's open bedroom door. He wasn’t even sixteen yet, but their oldest brother could be bossy when he wanted to be. 

Arya rolled her eyes, but pulled Sansa out of her bed and then walked across the hall to her own room to get her coat. When she came back out into the hallway, she could smell something burning and when she looked down the stairs, she could see just the faintest bit of smoke wafting upward. “Sansa! I think there’s really a fire somewhere! Come on!”

Robb appeared in the doorway of the bathroom he shared with Jon, a towel wrapped around his waist. “Can’t anybody shut that thing off?” he shouted.

“Robb, there’s smoke! Where are the little boys?”

Her brother’s expression changed, and Arya saw him sniff the air. “Shit! Rickon went downstairs with Mom. I think Bran was in his room. I’ll go check!”

He sprinted down the hall in the opposite direction holding onto his towel just as Sansa came out into the hall. “Robb’s going to get Bran?” she asked. When Arya nodded, she said, “Let’s go then.”

“No. It’s all right. Stay up here,” came a masculine voice sounding rather out of breath.

Arya turned to see Jon coming up the stairs through the light haze in the air, carrying Rickon who had his hands clamped tightly over his ears trying to block out the noise of the alarm.

“Jon, what . . .” Sansa started.

“I’m afraid you won’t be getting blueberry pancakes, Sansa. The batter’s all burnt up, and the kitchen’s a mess. Here, take him.”

Arya frowned. Her mother had never burned food in her life. Or at least not in Arya’s lifetime. “Jon, what do you mean . . .”

“Everything’s fine, little sister.” His voice sounded like nothing was fine. “Here, you two take Rickon. Where’s Robb?”

“Bran’s room. What’s wrong, Jon? Where’s Mom? I’m going downstairs.”

“No!”

“You can’t make me stay here.”

“Arya!” he said, sounding almost like her father at his sternest. “For once in your life, just do as you’re told. You and Sansa take Rickon. I need Robb, and I promise we’ll get the alarm shut off.”

“Arya, come on,” Sansa said softly, reaching up to take their littlest brother from Jon’s arms.

That shocked Arya. While Sansa rarely contradicted either of their parents, she never took orders from their older brothers. So Arya just nodded and followed Sansa back into her room. A few minutes later, she heard both her big brothers going downstairs, and she wondered if Robb was still wearing just a towel. 

About ten minutes later, the alarm finally stopped, and the silence was almost deafening. Rickon, who’d curled up on Sansa’s bed without ever moving his hands from his ears now pulled them slowly away.

“I didn’t mean it, Sansa! I didn’t! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I just tried to help! Mommy was on the phone and she was yelling and the pancakes on the griddle looked all done and . . . I only wanted to help.”

“It’s okay, Rickon,” Sansa shushed him, putting her arms around him and rocking him the way Mom might. “It’s okay.”

“I’m going downstairs,” Arya said to no one in particular.

“Jon said . . .”

“I don’t care what Jon said. I live here. I can go downstairs if I want.”

She didn’t though. Not right away. She went to Bran’s room to check on him. He wasn’t there, but his window was open. She shook her head. Her brother was at least half monkey. No doubt he’d taken the smoke alarm as an excellent excuse to climb down the drainpipe that ran alongside his window. Mom hated for him to climb on the house, but she couldn’t very well fault him for escaping a potential fire. She walked to the window and looked down. No sign of Bran, but footprints in the deep snow led around the house. He must have gone around to the front door.

She left his room and hurried down the stairs. She started to run into the kitchen when she caught sight of wet tracks leading to the laundry room. She followed them and found Bran, the pants of his Batman pajamas wet to just above the knees, inside the laundry room leaning against the wall. That wall had been added a long time after the house had been built and it was thin enough that if you leaned your ear against it, you could hear anything said in the dining room which was beyond it.

“Bran . . .”

“Shh,” he said, waving his hand at her in a shushing motion. Bran was definitely the sneakiest of all of them. And he never got caught at it so he only got in trouble when he was stupid enough to climb out in the open. 

As she walked toward him, she realized he looked upset and even a little scared. Bran was the closest to her in age—they were only about a year and a half apart, but because of how their birthdays fell on the calendar, they were two grades apart, and Arya kind of went back and forth between thinking that Bran was smarter than half the kids in her grade and that he was an absolute baby, better suited for playing with Rickon than with her. Right now, Bran, who’d turn eight in February looked as young as she’d ever seen him. He turned toward her and mouthed the words, “Mom’s crying.”

Mom didn’t cry. Well, she cried at movies sometimes, and once in a while she even cried over songs which Arya thought was possibly the dumbest thing her mother ever did, and Sansa thought was ‘adorable.’ But she didn’t just sit down and cry because she was upset. Arya put her own ear against the wall, and was startled at just how well she could hear the sounds of someone crying.

“It’s all right, Mom. We got the alarm to stop. There’s lots of other stuff to eat. It’s all right.” That was Robb’s voice, sounding almost as young and scared as Bran looked in spite of the comforting words he was saying.

“I . . . It’s Sansa’s birthday, Robb. It’s Sansa’s birthday, and I’ve ruined it.” Mom’s voice sounded awful, and it was pretty obvious that she was indeed the person crying in the dining room.

“Nothing’s ruined, Mom. Everything’ll be just fine. I promise.”

Her mother laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound at all. Arya had always loved her mother’s laugh. She didn’t love the way her mouth would go all narrow when she disapproved of something or the look she had that made you just want to fall through a floor when she caught you doing something you weren’t supposed to. But her mother’s laughter was one of the best sounds in all the world. Only this didn’t sound like her mother’s laugh at all. It sounded hard. And even hopeless.

“Nothing is fine, Robb,” she said. “Sansa’s birthday breakfast is ruined. And Bran won’t be getting his Christmas Eve gift tonight. That new Xbox thing is sold out everywhere here, but your father found one in King’s Landing. And now it’s stuck in White Harbor along with him.”

“He’s getting an Xbox 360? He’ll love that! Whenever he gets it. It’s supposed to be way better than the old Xbox. And if he wants, Jon and I will help him take it to Grandpa Hoster’s after he gets it tomorrow so he can hook it up to one of his televisions for the next couple days and not have to wait until we get home to play it.”

She heard her mother sigh. “You’re a good boy, Robb. And I’m sure he’d love that. But he won’t get his gift tomorrow. The White Harbor airport is already closed down for the next three days.”

“What?” Robb spoke out loud precisely what Arya had thought at that pronouncement. “Why doesn’t he just rent a car then? White Harbor is only eight hours from here by car!”

“He tried to talk Robert into that yesterday, but the man said he wasn’t spending all that time on a road when he had a perfectly good hotel where he could wait for the airports to open back up.”

“But Dad could . . .”

“Yes,” Mom snapped. “Your father could have rented a car yesterday! Today, he can’t. Apparently the roads are considered too hazardous and no one is renting. Not even 4-wheel-drive vehicles. He’s now thoroughly stuck there through all of Christmas!”

Arya felt sick. Three more days. Dad wouldn’t be home before December 28th. He was going to miss everything. Christmas Eve. Christmas morning. Christmas dinner at Grandpa Hoster’s. Ice skating at Riverrun. _Can we still go to Riverrun? Are the roads that bad?_ Suddenly, Arya had visions of spending the entire holiday locked up here in Winterfell.

Apparently, Robb did, too. “Will we be able to go to Riverrun still, Mom? To Grandpa Hoster’s?”

“Well,” Mom said thoughtfully, sounding more like herself. “We’ve got the two big vehicles that are practically tanks, but only one licensed driver without your father here. Ben’s on leave. He’s coming tonight. I could invite him to come along and drive the second one.”

“Or maybe Theon could . . .”

“Robb Stark, if you think I’m letting Theon Greyjoy drive any vehicle I own, you are sadly mistaken. Licensed or not, he’s a terror just on that snowmobile of his.”

Arya actually had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing in spite of all that still worried her. Theon was a senior at the high school were Robb was a freshman and Jon was a sophomore, but for whatever reason, he hung out a lot with her brothers. He was kind of a jerk, but he was mostly okay. Mom never trusted him though. Arya had heard her tell her dad once that she just couldn’t completely trust anyone that seemed to treat everything in life as a joke. She never made Jon and Robb stop hanging out with him, though. And she never kicked him out of the house even when everybody got sick of him.

“Anyway, I’ll think of something,” Mom told Robb. “We will have Christmas whether your father is here or not. Now you go on and get dressed, Robb. Whose robe is that, anyway? I know you don’t have one that shade of purple.”

“I was in a hurry, and I couldn’t find mine. Are you okay, Mom? Really okay?”

“Yes, Robb. I’m really okay. I’m sorry I fell to pieces like that. I shouldn’t. I just . . . I miss your father.”

“I know, Mom. We all do.”

“But I have a kitchen to clean, and then I need to make sure Rickon isn’t utterly traumatized and apologize to Sansa.”

“Jon’s working on the kitchen. But it may not be quite up to your standards.”

“What would I do without you boys? Thank you, Robb. It kills me to see how you two are growing up, but I’m very proud of you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, Mom. We know.”

Arya felt a tug on her arm. She’d almost forgotten Bran was there, too.

“Come on! Sounds like they’re moving. We can’t get caught in here.”

“Bran, you dripped all over everything. They’ll know you were in here.”

“Oh!” he said. Then without missing a beat, he pulled off the Batman pajama bottoms and dumped them on the floor and walked out in his pajama top and underwear. When Arya looked at him questioningly, he shrugged. “Robb saw me climbing down. I’ll just say I saw I was dripping so I left my pajamas in the laundry room rather than track up the whole house.”

Just as she was about to tell him he was a criminal genius, his face kind of scrunched up. “Is Daddy really gonna miss all of Christmas?”

“Looks that way, Bran,” she said sadly. “But it’ll be fine.” She tried to remember what Robb had said to her mother. “Nothing’s ruined. Everything’ll be just fine. I promise.” 

They stuck their heads out of the laundry room. The coast was clear. Robb and Mom must have stopped in the kitchen to talk to Jon, so they hurried up the stairs where Arya stopped at Sansa’s room. Bran stopped for a moment as well. “I don’t know if everything’s fine, Arya,” he said sadly. “You weren’t there when Mommy was crying really hard. She was by herself in the dining room, talking to Daddy on her phone.”

Bran hardly ever called Mom ‘Mommy’ anymore. He was too invested in being one of the big kids. He didn’t look very big now, and Arya felt like she should say something else comforting and big sister-like. But she wasn’t as old as Robb. She was only nine herself. “What did she say?” she asked instead.

“She was mad,” Bran whispered. “Mad and crying all at the same time.” He shook his head. “I don’t think she likes Tommen Baratheon’s dad very much.”

“No,” Arya said. “I don’t think she likes him at all. But what did she say, Bran?”

“It was bad.”

“What did she say, Bran?”

Bran took a big breath and then said, “She told Dad if he loved her or us at all he’d care more about being here with us than keeping Mr. Baratheon warm and cozy with his high dollar horse.”

“His horse? Mr. Baratheon doesn’t have a horse.”

“Well that’s what it sounded like. She said it kind of funny though. Almost like it had a ‘z’ at the end.”

“A ‘z’? Like horze? That doesn’t even make . . . oh.”

“What? You know what she meant?”

“No,” Arya lied. “It’s probably just some kind of insult to Mr. Baratheon. She was just mad.”

“Yeah,” Bran said. “Really, really mad. At Daddy.”

“All married people fight, Bran,” she said with confidence she didn’t feel. She wondered suddenly if Sansa had been faking it when she’d said the same thing to her earlier. “It doesn’t mean anything. Go on and get cleaned up and dressed.”

 _Whores,_ she thought. She knew that word thanks to Theon Greyjoy. He’d called a cheerleader with blonde curly hair that Robb kind of liked a cheap whore in Arya’s hearing once so she’d asked Jon what it meant. Jon was good about answering her questions. It seemed her mother knew about the women Robert took on these trips with her father after all.

“I just don’t like them to be mad at each other,” Bran said.

“I know. None of us do. But it’ll be okay. Go on and get dressed.”

Her brother nodded and went on toward his room while Arya walked into Sansa’s. Rickon was sound asleep on Sansa’s bed. The early morning wake-up followed by the fire alarm trauma must have been too much for her littlest brother. She didn’t see her sister.

“Sansa?”

Arya looked up to see her mother enter the room. Her eyes were kind of puffy, but she otherwise looked okay. “I don’t know where she is, Mom. I just walked in here.”

“Poor little guy,” Mother said, walking to the bed to brush Rickon’s wild curls out of his face. He always fought having his hair cut. No one could come near him with scissors except their mother, and he gave even her a bit of a fight about it. So his hair tended to get a little long and shaggy at times.

“What did he do exactly?” Arya asked, remembering how he’d yelled about not meaning it and trying to help.

Mom sat down wearily on one of Sansa’s little poofy chairs. “I let him help me mix up the batter and showed him how I poured a little bit out on the griddle at a time to make the pancakes. I let him pour out one and helped him flip it over when it was time and told him the secret to good pancakes was making certain they spent just the right amount of time on each side.” Her face darkened. “I had just poured out a couple more when I heard my cell phone ring. It was in the dining room, so I told Rickon not to touch anything and ran to get it. It was your father, and we . . . we talked longer than I intended and then I heard Rickon shout so I dropped the phone and ran back to the kitchen to see him picking up the pieces of my big ceramic mixing bowl off the floor. All of the batter was poured over the griddle, onto the table, and on the floor. He was crying, and I shouted at him, and he cut his finger a little on a sharp piece, and I picked him up to get him a band-aid, and I could hear your father’s voice the whole time shouting from my phone in the dining room asking ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’” She shook her head. “I didn’t even think about the stupid batter on the hot griddle. I got Rickon’s finger bandaged, carried him out so I could get your father to hush, and then the smoke alarm went off and Rickon started screaming. I couldn’t put him down to do anything until Jon came and grabbed him. Then I turned off the griddle and poured water on the mess which made more smoke, of course.”

She put her face in her hands and shook her head slowly. 

“But . . . what was he trying to do? Rickon, I mean?”

Her mother looked up and smiled wanly. “I’d told him the pancakes had to be taken off the griddle at the right time to make them perfect. He’d pulled off the two I had on there and laid them on the plate.” She frowned. “I drowned those, of course, when I doused the whole countertop with water. Anyway, I suppose he tried to pour more batter out and the bowl was too heavy. It’s my fault. I never should have left him alone in there.”

“He’s okay,” came Sansa’s voice. 

Arya looked up to see her sister standing in the doorway with her hair twisted up in a towel. 

“Sansa!” her mother said jumping up to embrace her. “I am so sorry I ruined your birthday breakfast.”

“It’s okay, Mom. Rickon told me how it happened once I got him to calm down. He really is okay. I told him I wasn’t mad, and you wouldn’t be, either. He was only trying to help.”

Mom let go of Sansa and pulled back enough to look down into her face. Arya realized with a start that she didn’t have to look down very far. Sansa was getting pretty tall. “I love you, sweetheart, and I’m proud of you, but I’m afraid it breaks my heart just a little bit to realize how grown-up you’re all getting.”

“I’m not that grown-up, Mom. Honest,” Sansa replied with a smile. 

“I’m glad. And I’m happy to report that your cake survived the catastrophe at least. I had it well put away.”

“Yes!” Sansa shouted, doing a little dance. “We could have that for breakfast, but everyone would eat too much, and I’d like to save at least one piece for Dad when he gets here tonight or tomorrow.”

Mother’s smile disappeared. 

_Sansa doesn’t know,_ Arya thought.

“Come over here, Arya,” Mom said in a soft, serious voice.

_I have to pretend not to know either. Mom doesn’t know I was listening to her and Robb._

“Your father won’t be here tonight or tomorrow, I’m afraid, girls. The airport at White Harbor is to be shut down for at least three more days. Apparently the runways were damaged by heavy ice. And there are no rental cars to be had so he can’t drive home.

“Daddy’s missing ALL of Christmas?” Sansa said in a voice that was almost a whine. “He can’t miss all of Christmas! He just can’t!”

“I’m afraid he doesn’t have a choice at this point,” their mother said somewhat harshly. Then she softened her voice again. “But we will have Christmas here, I promise you. And your birthday breakfast, Sansa. I’m afraid I don’t have enough blueberries left to make a decent second batch of your favorite pancakes, but how about chocolate chip? I know I have enough of those.”

“Yeah, Mom. That’s fine,” Sansa said pretty glumly. Arya knew her sister didn’t care about the stupid breakfast. She was upset about Dad being gone. No pancake was going to fix that.

“Well, I need to get back downstairs and start cooking. Your older brothers are finishing up the kitchen cleaning if you can believe it. They’ve done a pretty good job of it. Where’s Bran, though? I haven’t seen him since we sang.” Arya hated the forced brightness in her mother’s voice.

“In his room. Or the shower, maybe,” Arya said. She took another look at Sansa. “Speaking of the shower, that’s my robe.”

“I couldn’t find mine. I know I left it on the hook just inside our bathroom door. Did you take it?”

“Oh!” Mom laughed, and it surprisingly sounded almost normal. Not quite, but almost. “I think Robb’s wearing it.”

“Robb?” Sansa asked incredulously. “How does it even fit him?”

“It doesn’t very well,” Mom said with a smile. “I think he threw it on in a bit of a hurry. Must have grabbed it from your bathroom as he ran by it.” She kissed Sansa. “Happy Birthday, sweetheart.” Then she turned and kissed Arya, “And Merry Christmas to both of you. I’ll have breakfast ready in a jif.”

“We need to talk,” Arya told Sansa as soon as their mother was gone. “Come in my room because I don’t want Rickon to wake up and listen.”

She and Sansa weren’t exactly close. And it had gotten worse since Sansa had moved up to the middle school this year and spent all her time with Jeyne Poole and decided that Joffrey the Jerk Baratheon was ‘dreamy.’ Normally, Jon would be the first one Arya shared her secrets with, but he was probably still with Robb, and she didn’t want to admit to Robb that she’d been eavesdropping on him, so she quickly told her sister all she could remember from what Robb and Mom had talked about in the dining room. She knew Sansa was worried because she didn’t even yell at her for the eavesdropping.

Breakfast was weird. The pancakes were Mom’s usual delicious perfection. Arya actually liked chocolate chip pancakes better than blueberry. On a normal day, she might have even thanked Rickon for ruining the others. But this was not a normal day. Nobody said much. Mom tried to keep up a cheerful conversation about nothing for awhile, but when it became obvious no one else would participate, she lapsed into almost total silence as well. When Sansa volunteered to do the dishes, Mom refused. No one was allowed to do dishes or chores on their birthday. That was another of Dad’s birthday rules, and it seemed like Mom was determined to enforce all of them no matter how mad she was at him. She wouldn’t let Jon or Robb help either, saying they’d already helped enough, so Arya volunteered to do it. Mom insisted on helping as well, and Arya wanted badly to ask her about a million things but she didn’t want to make her sad or mad so she just went over and turned the radio on the station that played Christmas music because her mother liked Christmas music more than anybody on the planet. Mom smiled at her, but she didn’t start singing along to White Christmas so Arya knew she was still upset.

About an hour later, she heard her mother on her phone in Dad’s office. “Benjen! The kids are counting on your being here! . . . I know it can’t be helped, but . . . They’re all missing Ned terribly, and I thought you could . . .” Suddenly, her mother looked up and saw her standing in the doorway. Frowning, she walked over and shut the door in her face. Whatever she said after that, she kept too quiet for Arya to hear, so Arya wandered into the family room where everyone else was pretending to watch some animated Christmas show Rickon had chosen.

When her mother walked in about a half hour later, she asked them to pause it a moment. “Benjen can’t make it for dinner tonight,” she told them without preamble. “He’s stuck doing something or other, and if he comes in at all tonight, it will be very late. But he did promise to be here in time to come to Riverrun with us tomorrow so that’s good, isn’t it? He and I can drive the two vehicles, and even with all the snow, we can make it by dinnertime if we leave first thing in the morning.”

“Why won’t Daddy drive?” Rickon asked. He’d been told repeatedly that their father was stuck in White Harbor, but he kept asking stupid questions like this. Maybe he thought asking over and over would make the answers change. 

“Daddy can’t be here, Rickon,” Mom told him simply. “Hey, I found Robb’s and Jon’s old racetrack. You want to see if we can make it work?”

“Yeah!” Rickon yelled, forgetting all about their absent father when presented with race cars and the prospect of Mom playing with him all at once.

“Anyone else wanna give us a hand?” Mom asked, looking around the room. 

She was greeted with silence for a moment. Then Bran said, “Sure. I’ll come check it out.”

“I think Theon was gonna try to make it over here on his snowmobile,” Robb said. “I’m gonna hang here and wait for him. But if you can’t figure it out, come get me.”

“Or me,” Jon laughed, elbowing Robb. “I always had to help him!”

When Mom and the younger boys had gone, Sansa rounded on her brothers. “So how bad was she?”

“What are you talking about, Sansa?”

“Mom! Just how bad was she when she got off the phone with Dad?” Her sister looked eerily like their mother just then—like their mother looked when she demanded to be told the truth about something.

“She’s okay, Sans,” Jon said. “She just misses Dad.”

“No, she’s not okay. And I think she wants to murder Dad.”

“Sansa! Geez! What’s the matter with you? Just . . . don’t worry about it, okay? Everything’s cool.” Robb didn’t look or sound like everything was remotely cool.

“No, it isn’t, Robb,” Sansa said firmly. Arya was just beginning to think she might high five her sister for demanding the story from the boys, but then she said, “We know Mom was really upset because Arya and Bran heard her talking to you in the dining room.”

“Sansa!” Arya protested just as Robb said, “What the hell, Arya?”

She couldn’t believe Sansa had just ratted her out, but Arya turned to Robb. “It wasn’t my fault. I just followed Bran’s wet footprints to the laundry room and found him listening. Mom was crying, Robb! What was I supposed to do? Just leave?”

“Yes!” Robb and Jon said together. 

Then they all stood there kind of glaring at one another until Jon said, “We might as well sit down if we’re going to talk about this.”

“Tell us what happened when you got down there, Jon,” Sansa said as they sat. “And we’ll tell you what Mom said to Dad on the phone before Robb was in the dining room with her.”

“What?” Robb said as he and Jon looked at each other.

“Bran was in the laundry room listening a long time, Robb,” Arya said smugly, instantly forgiving her sister for telling the boys about the eavesdropping considering it gave them this leverage. No way would they not want to hear this.

“And I suppose he told you what he heard, didn’t he, little sister?” Jon asked.

Arya nodded. 

“Did it upset him?” Jon pushed.

“Well, he was upset because she was crying. But he didn’t even understand what she said. He’s not even eight yet, you know.”

“But you did?” Robb asked. “Spill it, Arya.”

“You guys first,” Sansa insisted.

“Look, this isn’t some kind of game, Sans,” Jon said. “We’re all worried about Mom, okay? And Dad. But I don’t know if . . .”

He looked at Robb, and Robb looked over at Arya which made her very angry. “I’m not a baby, and I’m not going anywhere!” she insisted. “They’re my parents, too!”

“Okay,” Jon said in an infuriatingly calm voice. He could channel Daddy almost as well as Sansa could channel Mom, and Arya was annoyed by it at the moment. “Just remember, Mom and Dad love each other a lot. She’s just upset about Christmas right now. That’s all.”

“What happened when you came downstairs, Jon?”

Before he could answer, the sound of a loud motor broke into the silence outside. 

“Oh, fuck! It’s Theon!” Robb said, jumping up. “Go on and tell them, Jon. They won’t let it go. I’ll go get Greyjoy.” Without another word, he headed off toward the front entryway.

“Talk, Jon,” Sansa said.

“The kitchen smelled like burnt pancakes when I got there, and I saw the mess, but I didn’t see Mom or Rickon. Then I heard Rickon screaming from the dining room so I went in there. Mom was holding him in her arms and yelling, ‘Shut up, Ned! Just shut up! I can’t hear anything you’re saying over this racket!’ I honestly thought she’d lost it for a minute until I took Rickon from her and realized I could hear Dad’s voice yelling. Her phone was on the dining room table, but between Rickon and the smoke alarm, I couldn’t make out what he was saying. As soon as I had Rickon, Mom ran back into the kitchen. I picked up her phone and said, ‘Can’t talk, Dad’, flipped it shut, and followed Mom. She’d already turned off the griddle and was tossing a big pot of water on the burning stuff. A big cloud of smoke went up, and she just sat down on the floor and started crying. She looked up and saw me and just said ‘Get him out of here, Jon’ and that’s when I came back upstairs to give Rickon to you two and get Robb.” 

“You just left her there?” Arya said accusingly.

“What else could he do, Arya? He had Rickon, remember?” Sansa said.

“I did what she asked, Arya,” Jon insisted. “Then Robb and I came back downstairs and she wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. Robb started fanning the smoke with a towel while I figured out how to pull the wires out of the smoke alarm. Then Robb went into the dining room to find Mom, and he said she was sitting at the dining room table, holding her phone and crying.”

“You Starks and your drama! Never a dull moment!”

The three of them looked up to see Theon Greyjoy standing in the doorway smiling and shaking his head slowly. Robb stood behind him, looking apologetic. “There was no getting rid of him,” he said.

“Great,” Jon murmured.

“Oh, do continue,” Theon said, walking into the room. “The lady of the manor is weeping over her phone. What new tragedy has struck House Stark? Is the family truly cursed?”

“Shut up, Theon,” Jon growled at him. “This isn’t funny.”

“Of course it isn’t funny! It never is with Starks. My god, you people have more tragic backstory than anyone I’ve ever met. Illicit affairs, murders, dead lovers, orphaned children . . .”

“Shut up, Theon!” Robb actually shouted which surprised Arya as his tolerance for Theon’s mouth was usually much higher than Jon’s. “It’s not a tragic story, asshole. It’s my fucking family, and it’s not for your amusement.”

Robb was as angry as Arya had ever seen him. She thought he might punch the older boy if he opened his mouth again. But Theon actually shut up. He just held his hands up as if to say, ‘I quit’ and took a seat in the family room.

Tragic backstory. Arya supposed Theon meant all the stuff that happened before any of them were born. How her dead aunt ran off with some married guy only to die in a car accident along with him. Then the guy’s father went nuts and came after their grandfather with a gun. Her Uncle Brandon, the one Mom was supposed to marry, jumped in front of Grandpa Rickard when he saw the gun so he got killed first. It didn’t help anything because the crazy guy just kept shooting after Uncle Brandon fell down and Grandpa Rickard died, too. Arya knew there was more to the story, but her parents never talked about it so she didn’t really know the details. She didn’t know what ‘illicit’ meant either, but an affair was when married people fooled around with other people so Theon must be talking about Aunt Lyanna and her boyfriend. Nobody else in the family ever did anything like that. The murders meant her uncle and her grandfather. She supposed the dead lover was Jon’s birth mother, but she didn’t want to think about that. Especially after her fight with Ned Dayne just last week. But orphaned children . . . “None of us are orphans,” she said, looking at Theon. “We have parents!”

“He means Robb and me,” Jon said softly, glaring at Theon. “But you’re right, little sister. We have parents.”

“And none of that ancient history has anything to do with our parents right now,” Sansa said. “So, let’s get back to what we were talking about.”

“I believe your mother was crying in the dining room,” Theon offered helpfully.

“Shut up, Greyjoy,” Robb and Jon said in unison.

“So either Dad called back, or she called him,” Sansa said, thinking.

“He called back,” Jon said. “I told you I closed her phone, but it started ringing again almost immediately. I’d forgotten because I could barely hear it over the alarm. I guess she must have finally gotten up to answer it after I left with Rickon.”

“Is anybody going to fill me in on the beginning of this tale?” Theon asked.

“No,” said all four Starks present.

“And you’re not telling anyone else any of this or we’ll kill you,” Arya said.

“I think you mean that,” Theon said, looking offended. “Don’t worry, Killer. I won’t say a word to anyone.”

“So Mom went in the dining room and talked to Dad on the phone again,” Jon said. “That must have been a nightmare with the alarm going off. He had to be shouting for her to hear anything.”

“They were still on the phone when the alarm stopped,” Arya said. “That’s when Bran heard Mom talk about Mr. Baratheon’s horse.”

“What?” said all three boys.

“It wasn’t really a horse. Bran just didn’t know the word.” She bit her lip and wished very hard that Theon Greyjoy wasn’t there. “Bran said Mom was crying, and that she told Daddy if he loved her or us at all he’d care more about being here with us than keeping Robert Baratheon warm and cozy with his high dollar whores.”

Her brothers just stared at her while Theon Greyjoy gave a low whistle. “That’s a hell of smackdown . . . Hey, wait a minute. Little Bran thought whores was horse? That’s hilarious!”

“Shut up, Theon!” they all said together. 

Arya really wished Theon would go away. She didn’t like talking about this in front of him, but she was scared, and she couldn’t keep herself from asking, “Do you think they’ll get divorced?”

“No!” Jon said emphatically. “Arya, no. Dad probably should have told fat Robert no about a trip so close to Christmas, and Mom’s really mad at him, but they love each other. It’ll be fine.”

“Myrcella’s parents are getting divorced! She told me.”

“Myrcella’s parents hate each other,” Robb said.

“And her father bangs everything that moves,” Theon added.

“Theon,” Jon said warningly with a meaningful look toward Arya.

“I’m not a baby, Jon! I know what Mr. Baratheon does with all those women he likes to have around. So does Mom. And I don’t think she likes Daddy being there!”

“Arya, I already told you--you can’t think that Daddy would . . .” Sansa started, “Because he wouldn’t. Never in a million years! He loves Mom more than anything.”

Arya bit her lip, wishing Ned Dayne had never opened his big fat mouth. It was a lie. She knew it was a lie, but she couldn’t help remembering he said it. “That’s not why he married her, though,” she mumbled.

“What are you talking about, Arya?” Robb asked.

She looked at her brother. “You,” she said after a moment. “Daddy married Mom because of you.”

Robb looked like she’d hit him, and she felt terrible.

“That’s not the whole story, Arya,” Jon said. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, but if you have questions about Robb’s adoption or mine, you need to talk to us. Or Mom and Dad. Not little gossips like Myrcella Baratheon. Her father definitely married her mother for no reason except that he knocked her up, but with our parents . . . well, it was complicated, but it wasn’t . . .”

“Uncle Brandon died, and Daddy didn’t want Mom to have a baby without a husband,” Arya said. “And I know he loves Mom and that nothing else stupid Ned said is true, but that is why they got married, isn’t it? And if they started out even a tiny bit like Myrcella’s dumb parents, maybe they can get mad enough at each other to get divorced like Myrcella’s dumb parents!” It sounded idiotic when she said it. She knew it did, but she couldn’t help it. Her mother had never acted like she had today. Her father had never missed Christmas. Nothing was right, and if her parents weren’t right here together soon, she was afraid nothing would ever be right again.

“No, Arya, they can’t.” Surprisingly enough, it was Theon Greyjoy who spoke, and when she turned to glare at him, he wasn’t wearing his usual sarcastic smile. “Look here, Killer. I know more about fucked-up families than anybody, all right? My family makes the Baratheons look like normal people. And your family’s nothing like mine or theirs. Your family’s real, kid. Your parents—they’re so in love, they’re nauseating. Old people shouldn’t even look at each other like they do. I don’t know what the hell’s going on here today, but there is no fucking way your parents are getting divorced. Not happening.”

“Theon’s right,” Robb said. “We’re being idiots. All of us. Christmas might suck a little, but we’ll be okay. Mom and Dad will both be here in a few days, and we’ll be walking in on them kissing again. Gross, but normal.”

“We just need to be really nice to Mom,” Sansa said. “She misses Daddy more than any of us. I think that’s why she’s so mad at him.”

“Well, that’s stupid,” Arya said, but she realized she was really mad at her father for being gone, too. And she missed him terribly. So maybe what Sansa said wasn’t that stupid.

“Arya,” Jon said thoughtfully, “Ned who?”

“What?” she asked, although she knew perfectly well what he meant.

“You said that everything else Ned said was a lie. Ned who? And what did he tell you?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Oh, no. We’re all being honest today. What did my cousin say to you?”

“How did you know it was . . .” She saw Jon grin. “Aw, damn. You were just guessing, weren’t you?”

“Maybe. And don’t swear. You’re too young. What did Ned Dayne say to you about Mom and Dad?”

“Stupid stuff. It doesn’t matter.” 

“Arya,” Sansa said, sounding like Mom again. “If Ned Dayne is spreading nasty rumors about our parents, he needs to be told off. Even if he is Jon’s cousin.”

Jon sighed. “My uncle was pretty mad when I told him I wasn’t splitting Christmas up this year. I went to Starfall for Thanksgiving. I didn’t want to be away for any of Christmas. He might have given Ned an angry earful about Starks in general. I’m afraid Uncle Arthur does that when he’s mad at me, and it’s hard for Ned or Allyria not to believe him because they don’t even know any of you really—well except for Ned seeing you at school. But Ned’s not a bad kid, Arya, honest.”

That made Arya mad. “Yes, he is! He’s a liar! He said Daddy never wanted to marry Mom at all! That she manipulated him and tricked him because she wanted to marry a Stark and Uncle Brandon was dead. He said that Daddy still loved his stupid dead aunt and probably still pretends that Mom is dumb old Ashara Dayne and . . .” Arya stopped suddenly, realizing she was talking to Jon about his birth mother and calling her names. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, Jon. It’s just . . . Dad does love Mom. And that’s all. And Ned’s a stupid liar.”

“It’s all right, Arya,” Jon said softly. His face was almost expressionless, but he didn’t sound angry at her. “Ned’s just repeating what he’s been told, but he shouldn’t go around saying things like that about our parents. I’ll talk to him and . . .”

“No!” Arya exclaimed in panic.

“Arya, he’s my cousin. He’ll listen to . . .”

“No! No, please Jon, don’t ever ask Ned about this, please.” She was nearly crying now. She couldn’t let Jon talk to Ned Dayne. He’d tell him what she’d said.

“He deserves to be told off, Arya, just like Sansa said,” Robb insisted. “And Jon’s the best guy to do it.”

“But I already told him off!” she protested. Then she looked at the ground. “He won’t say anything else about Mom and Dad any time soon,” she mumbled.

Theon Greyjoy laughed. “What on earth did you do to him, Killer? Do tell us.”

She shook her head.

“What did you say to him, Arya?” Jon asked. 

It was impossible to lie to Jon when she was looking at him so she kept her head down. “Just to shut up about my parents.”

“You’re the world’s worst liar. What did you tell him?”

She bit her lip and looked up at her oldest brother—and in a lot of ways, her favorite brother. “Something mean.” She looked down again. “Something bad,” she almost whispered.

“Oh, then you have to tell!” Theon said gleefully. “Did you call him a bad word? Something you picked up from your brothers perhaps?”

“I get all my bad words from you, Theon!” she retorted, looking up at him. “But I didn’t call him anything. I just told him something. Something I heard Myrcella’s dad say to some man at one of their stupid boring parties we had to go to.”

“Go on, Arya,” Jon encouraged her. “It’s all right.”

It wasn’t all right. She knew it wasn’t, but she went on. “This guy was talking about Mom—saying that Dad had the prettiest wife there. And Mr. Baratheon said that Dad got all the best looking women which didn’t seem fair because he’s such a stick in the mud. That made me mad, because he’s supposed to be Dad’s best friend so he shouldn’t call him names. And then the guy asked what other beautiful women Dad, um, knocked boots with. I think that’s what he said. It seemed a dumb thing to say, but I could figure out what he meant, and that made me mad, too. But Mr. Baratheon just said that the guy should have seen the girl Dad had before Mom. That she was hotter than hell and never shy about using her assets.” She looked at Jon apologetically. “I don’t know exactly what that means, but it made all the men laugh. You know, a kind of icky laugh. I’m sorry, Jon.”

“Is that what you told Ned Dayne?” he asked, his expression not changing.

She shook her head. “He kept talking about her. Said he never got to know her as well as Dad did, but that he’d heard from another guy that . . . “ She shook her head. “I can’t say it. I don’t even know what it means, but I know it must be really awful. The way those men reacted to Mr. Baratheon . . . I didn’t even want to listen anymore. It was gross.”

“He was talking about my mother, of course. My birth mother. And you repeated whatever he said to Ned Dayne,” Jon said, his face still impossibly blank.

Arya nodded.

“Oh, come on, Killer! You have to spill it,” Theon wheedled. “What did you say to the Dayne kid about his dear, dead auntie?”

“Let it go, Theon,” Robb said. 

“I want to hear it, Arya,” Jon said.

“No you don’t.”

“I do. I deserve to know what you said about her.”

“I didn’t mean it! I don’t even know why it’s bad! It just sounds stupid! But Ned . . . Ned turned white, and then purple. And I thought he might hit me, but then he just stormed off.”

“I want to know what you said about my birth mother to my cousin.”

She sighed. “Not here. I’ll tell you if you really want me to. But not everybody. It’s none of their business.”

Theon started to protest, but Robb shut him up. Jon took Arya by the hand and led her upstairs to her room, not saying a word until he shut the door behind him. “Now, what did you tell Ned Dayne?”

“Remember I was only saying what I heard from fat Robert.” 

Jon nodded.

“And I only said it at all because I was mad. He said awful things about Mom.”

“I would have wanted to hurt him for that, too, Arya. What did you tell him?”

“Well, he kept going on and on about how Dad loved his Aunt Ashara, and how she was more beautiful than Mom and nicer than Mom and better than Mom, and that Dad could never love Mom after loving Ashara Dayne.” She swallowed. “And finally, I just couldn’t even see any more, I was so mad, and so I told him . . . I told him . . . that Dad never loved her at all. He just liked that she had a mouth that could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch!”

She said it very quickly and then closed her mouth tight, waiting for Jon to be mad at her. Jon simply sat there looking stunned for a moment. Then he actually began to laugh. He laughed for what seemed like forever, and then he said, “Oh god, Arya. You have no idea what that even means, do you?”

She shook her head. “But I’m sure it isn’t true. About your other mom, I mean. Why would anyone even try to do something so stupid?”

At that, he started laughing again. When he finally stopped again, he sighed heavily. “Come here, little sister,” he said, grabbing her against him and ruffling her hair. “First of all, don’t ever say that about anyone again, okay?”

“But what does it . . .”

“Nope. Not gonna tell you that one. Ask me again when you’re twelve, maybe. Secondly, I won’t have to beat up my little cousin for you because you’ve definitely shut him up with that remark. Thirdly, don’t ever change, okay?”

“Does that mean you’re not mad at me?”

Jon shrugged. “He insulted Mom. You defended her. That’s all you were thinking about. I’d defend Mom, too.”

“Yeah. But I was wrong to say anything mean about your other mother. I know Daddy did love her. And it’s okay because that was before he loved Mom. Just like how she loved Uncle Brandon. I just don’t like to think about them loving anybody else. Even if it’s selfish of me.”

“It’s not selfish. For what it’s worth, Dad never loved my birth mother the same way he loves Mom. No one can ever love two people the same exact way because no two people are exactly the same. Dad told me that, and he’s right. So what he feels about Mom is just for her. And it always has been.”

“So you really don’t think they’ll get divorced?”

“No. They aren’t getting divorced. They scared us all today, I admit that. But that’s just because we’re all spoiled. They’ll work it out. I promise.”

That made her feel better. Jon didn’t hate her for saying nasty things about his other mother, and he didn’t believe their parents would get a divorce. Even if Dad was gone somewhere with Robert and his whores, and Mom was crying and burning breakfast, and everybody else’s parents were getting divorced. If Jon could believe everything would be okay, then she could, too.

“She was really pretty.”

“Who?”

“Your other mother. In her picture in the hall—you know, the one that’s hung up by your baby picture? She’s really pretty.”

“She was.”

“Do you miss her?”

“It’s hard to miss somebody you never knew.”

“Do you wish you knew her?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. But I’ve got Dad and Mom and you and all the others. I’m a lot luckier than most people, Arya. And I know that.”

“Luckier than Theon or the Baratheon kids, huh?”

“Way luckier. Even if I do have to put up with you.”

“Hey!” She launched herself at him, but just as she collided with him, his cell phone started playing Jingle Bells.

Jon groaned. “If Robb doesn’t stop doing this shit to my ring tone . . .” He shook his head and stood up to escape Arya and check his phone. He looked surprised when he saw who the caller was and pushed the button to accept it immediately. “Uncle Ben? Where are you? Mom said . . . What? . . . Just Arya . . . No . . .” Jon was quiet for a long time after that, and he kept looking at Arya like he wished she wasn’t there.

“What’s Uncle Benjen saying?” she demanded. “Is he on his way? Is he going to get here before Mom thought?”

Jon waved his arm at her to be quiet. “Yeah,” he said finally into the phone. “Yeah, I can do that . . . No, with Dad gone, I think she’ll be grateful for it.” He was quiet for a long time again and actually turned his back on Arya which irritated her tremendously. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll see you, um, tomorrow then.”

He turned back to look at Arya. “You wanna say hi to Uncle Benjen?” he asked, holding out the phone.

She grabbed it. “Hey, Uncle Ben. What did you say to Jon?”

Her uncle laughed. “Christmas business, Niece Number Two. And don’t pester him about it. He’s sworn to secrecy.”

“I’ll get him to tell me.”

“You leave your brother alone, Arya. He won’t tell you, but you’ll make him feel bad about it, and he doesn’t deserve that. You’ll find out tomorrow anyway.”

Arya frowned, but brightened a bit at her uncle’s last words. “You’re coming for sure tomorrow then? And going to Grandpa Hoster’s with us?”

“Yep. Nothing will keep me away. That’s a promise.”

“Good,” Arya said. “Because so far this Christmas kind of sucks.”

“Don’t let your mother hear you talking like that—disparaging Christmas and using the word ‘sucks’ all in the same sentence. You’ll give her a heart attack.”

Arya shrugged even though her uncle couldn’t see her. “Just get here as soon as you can, okay? What kept you from coming today anyway?”

“Long story, Arya. I’ll tell you tomorrow. I’ve got to go, okay? Tell Sansa I said Happy Birthday, and be good to your mother.”

“Okay. Bye, Uncle Benjen.”

He hung up without saying goodbye, but that wasn’t unusual for her uncle. When he was finished with a conversation, he just stopped talking.

“So what did Uncle Benjen ask you to do?” she said immediately, looking up at Jon.

“Nothing, Arya. Leave it alone, okay?”

“Liar. You said ‘I can do that’. I heard you.”

“I told him I’d tell everybody he said Merry Christmas and he’d see us all tomorrow.”

Jon was lying. She could tell. But she decided to leave him alone for now.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Theon stayed until after they ate their traditional Christmas Eve meal of homemade pizzas which everybody had to report to the kitchen to help make. Mom even put Theon to work since he was there. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as it normally was because Dad wasn’t there saying stupid things and flirting with Mom and suggesting ridiculous pizza toppings. But Arya did manage to laugh a few times and so did everyone else. Even Mom.

After the pizza, Mom brought out Sansa’s lemon birthday cake with twelve candles on it and they all sang to her again before she blew them out. Then Mom presented her with her birthday present—a pair of boots which Arya supposed were nice enough, but which Sansa squealed and gushed over like they were the greatest things in the world. She even asked Robb if she could use his phone to call Jeyne Poole, but he told her the house phone was for preteens, and she stuck her tongue out at him, and Mom told them both to quit it.

Theon had to leave even though he didn’t want to because he said watching all of them open presents was more fun than sitting around pretending he liked his relatives. Arya saw her mother frown at that. Mother never did approve of people talking badly about their families—even families that really were horrible, like Theon’s. She didn’t say anything about it, though. She just wished him Merry Christmas and gave him cookies to take home once he assured her he could carry them without wrecking his snowmobile.

Then it was time for Christmas Eve presents, and Arya found herself feeling an odd mixture of anticipation and dread. Mom and Dad always put in a lot of thought to the Christmas Eve presents. They were usually the best ones because it gave everybody a whole evening to enjoy them. The presents from Santa Claus showed up in the morning, of course. Not that Arya believed in Santa anymore. But they always had to leave for Riverrun so early that they didn’t get much time to play with those until they came home a couple days later. So Christmas Eve presents were the best.

Only Dad wasn’t here. And that sucked. Whether Uncle Benjen wanted her to say the word or not. Bran wasn’t even going to get his present. At least he knew what it was since he heard Mom and Robb, but he’d have to act disappointed tonight. Only she hoped he knew not to act too disappointed because that would upset Mom.

“So, who’s playing Santa this year?” Mom asked brightly.

“I will,” Robb said just as brightly. Both of them were trying too hard.

Mom indicated a pile of presents on one side of the tree, and Robb walked over to them.

“To Robb,” he read, looking at the tag on a rather large box. “Oops, I’ll have to save that one for last.”

Everyone groaned. “Pick mine first, Robb!” Rickon shouted, bouncing up and down.

“Oh, wait!” Mom said. “Bran, I have to tell you something. Your father has your Christmas Eve gift because he got it in King’s Landing. I’ve put a little something for you there with the others, but I don’t want you to be disappointed. Your big gift will be here as soon as your father is.”

“Oh,” Bran said, looking down for a moment. Then he looked up at Mom and gave her a little smile. “That’s okay, Mom. I guess I’ll just have two reasons to be really happy when Dad gets home. And I’ll have something to look forward to when everybody else’s Christmas is over.”

Arya wondered if he’d practiced that response. It certainly put the biggest smile on her mother’s face that she’d seen there, and she wanted to hug Bran.

“My present now! No more talking!” Rickon nearly demanded.

“Patience, little guy,” Robb said. “I’ve got Jon’s here. If you can keep from begging while he opens his, I’ll get yours next.”

He handed Jon a box, and they all watched him unwrap a very unexciting set of three camera lenses. Well, unexciting to everyone except Jon who began talking really excitedly about how powerful the one zoom was and how he’d be able to get really clear pictures from far away. So Robb asked him if he was planning to spy on people and take incriminating pictures, and Jon said he’d planned to use it to take pictures of animals and stuff, but he’d consider taking pictures he could blackmail Robb with. And Mom told them both to hush, and Rickon nearly exploded from trying to keep from begging during the whole discussion.

It was almost like normal. Except Dad wasn’t there.

Robb turned back to the presents, frowned after a moment and looked at Mom. She smiled back. “Go out to the garden shed, Robb.”

“Hey! No one told me this job involved going outside!” Robb protested, but he grinned at his little brother and took off running for the back door. 

Everyone waited silently although Rickon was bouncing up and down. When Robb’s voice called out, “Well, I found something, but it isn’t wrapped. How do I know this is for Rickon?” the little boy sprinted down the hallway, and then everyone heard a loud, excited shout. Within a few moments, Rickon came back into the room, riding a brand new bicycle with training wheels faster than any four year old ought to be able to, and Arya figured he’d lose the training wheels pretty quickly.

“Look, Mom! I’ve got my own bike! A two-wheeler, not a baby bike!”

“Yes, Rickon,” she laughed. “Dad and I got it for you because you are a big boy!” 

He jumped off the bike to hug her quickly, but then asked if he could just ride in circles around the room while the others opened their presents. Surprisingly, Mom told him yes, if he could manage to go more slowly. Arya knew that wouldn’t last long.

“Arya!” Robb called out, and she realized he was back to handing out gifts. She hadn’t really asked for anything this year, and the box was pretty small. When she opened it, she couldn’t help but give a small shout of her own. “The new IPod! The one that plays videos, too! Oh, thanks, Mom! This is so cool!”

She hugged her mother and even in her excitement about the new IPod, realized it felt odd not to have a second hug to give. She wondered if her siblings felt the same.

“Bran,” Robb said, and he gave Bran an even smaller present. A sort of flat square one. When he opened it up, Arya couldn’t see what it was, but Bran got very quiet for a moment before looking up and saying, “Thank you for doing this, Mommy. I love it.”

Mom actually got up and went to hug Bran instead of the other way around, and Arya wondered what on earth her mother had come up with that had Bran forgetting to call her Mom in front of everybody. 

Robb who still stood by him was leaning down looking at it. “Is that from this summer, Bran? When he took you climbing?”

Bran nodded, still looking at his gift. He looked like he was almost going to cry. Curious, Arya put her IPod down and walked over to him. He held a framed photo of him and Dad rappelling down a cliff in the mountains just up to the north. Having decided that there was no way to keep Bran from climbing, Dad had taken him on a weekend trip there to climb for real—using proper equipment and everything. Jon and Robb had gone along to camp and fish, and Jon had taken the picture. It was really good. Their faces showed clearly. Bran was grinning at the camera, and Dad was smiling at Bran. Mom had put it in a frame. Arya knew it must have come from one of the pictures in her room. It was a really nice thing to do. Although now, she thought her eyes probably looked as teary as Bran’s. She looked up to see that Jon and Sansa had come over to look at the picture, too, and seemed unable to look away from it. Only Rickon was oblivious, still riding around in circles.

“Well,” Mother said suddenly, rubbing her hand under her eyes which were bright with moisture. “Don’t forget our birthday girl! You’re falling down on the job, Robb.”

“Oh. Sorry, Sans,” he said, going back over to pick up the small box that remained there beside his own great big one. “Here you go.”

She looked at it thoughtfully, turning it different directions as if she might get some clue about its content by doing so.

“Quickest way to find out what’s in it is to open it, Sansa,” Robb said.

She frowned at him. “The package is pretty.” She started to untape one end.

“Oh, come on, Sansa!” Arya said. “Just rip it. It’s paper!”

“It’s pretty paper.”

Arya rolled her eyes. Sansa could be really ridiculous sometimes. When she finally removed the paper and opened the box, she shrieked. “Oh my gosh! It’s pink!!”

She then proceeded to hold up a Razr phone that looked just like Jon’s and Robb’s except that it was, as she had said, bright pink.

“Are you kidding me?” Robb said. “She’s in the sixth grade! Jon was in high school before he got a phone!”

“And you were in the eighth grade,” Mother said. “What’s your point?”

Robb looked at Jon who mouthed the word ‘princess’ and shrugged, but then both boys smiled at Sansa dancing around holding up the pink phone looking kind of like one of those Disney princesses singing about love and happiness or something. Arya was a little jealous for a minute, but she realized that this set a precedent so she should get her own phone by sixth grade at the latest so she grinned and started humming the “I Know You, I Walked With You Once Upon A Dream” from Sleeping Beauty (which was the only Disney princess song she could think) of while Sansa whirled around with her new treasure. The boys cracked up. Her mother rolled her eyes at her, but Arya could tell she was trying not to laugh herself. Sansa was too wrapped up in the bliss of owning her own pretty pink cell phone to even notice.

Robb opened his own gift finally—a set of new hockey equipment—skates, pads, and helmet. Mom directed him to look underneath the big couch, and he pulled out a hockey stick with a red bow on the handle and laughed.

“I couldn’t come up with any way to wrap that that hid the shape,” Mom said, smiling at him.

As they all sat there admiring their presents, it almost felt like Christmas, but then Arya realized Mom didn’t get anything. Their parents always exchanged gifts after the kids opened theirs, but Dad wasn’t there to give Mom hers. She just sat there quietly, watching the six of them. Finally she asked if anyone wanted more lemon cake. Sansa, Jon, and Bran did, but Robb, Rickon, and Arya preferred to dig into Mom’s Christmas cookies. By the time they finished gorging on sweets, Rickon was visibly yawning, and Arya realized she felt pretty tired herself.

“I think it’s bedtime,” Jon said. 

Arya’s head snapped around to look at him. Jon had never suggested bedtime in his life. He was looking at Mom who smiled and nodded at him. 

“If we don’t go to sleep, Santa can’t come,” Jon continued.

That got Rickon’s attention. “Mommy, we have to go to bed now!” he said, jumping up from his spot on the floor that was surrounded by crumbs.”

“Okay, sweetheart. I’ll come up with you,” Mother said.

“Everybody has to go,” Rickon insisted.

“He’s right,” Bran said. “No one can stay awake.”

Arya wasn’t certain if Bran still believed in Santa or not. He could just be trying to get Rickon to bed, but then again, she’d still believed when she was seven. Last year, she’d had her doubts, and this summer she’d finally asked Mom about it. Mom told her the truth and explained how important it was not to take Santa Claus away from her little brothers or anyone else until they were ready to ask about it themselves. So, she would never say a word about it to Bran. It felt kind of funny herself not to have even the tiniest thought that Santa could be real.

Everybody went upstairs and got ready for bed, but instead of going to sleep, Arya stayed awake reading the instructions for her IPod. She got thirsty and went to get a cup of water from the bathroom and saw Jon’s bedroom light shining from beneath his closed door.

She went to his door and knocked softly. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

He came over and opened the door, and she saw that Robb was in there, too. Neither of them had even undressed. “Go to bed, Arya,” Jon said.

“No. If you two are staying up, I’m staying up, too.”

“You can’t,” Robb said.

“I can if you can,” she answered.

“But we have to . . .” Robb cut off whatever he was going to say. “Look, Arya. Please go to bed.”

“I don’t want . . .”

“Remember you asked what Uncle Ben wanted me to do?” Jon interrupted her.

“Yeah.”

“Well this is it.”

“Uncle Ben told you to stay up all night with Robb?” Arya said skeptically.

“No. We have to help Mom.”

“Jon!” Robb protested.

“Help Mom?” Arya asked. “Help Mom with . . . oh!” It hit her rather suddenly. There was no fat man in a red suit who came down the chimney, but presents were scattered all around the tree come Christmas morning. Mom and Dad had to do that after everyone was asleep. Only Dad wasn’t here.

“You two get to help put out presents? I want to help, too!”

“Arya! What are you talking about? Santa Claus puts out the presents.”

Arya looked at him like he was insane, and Jon started laughing. “Give it up, Robb. She’s obviously in the know.”

“She’s nine!” Robb protested.

“Yeah, well I knew at nine and a half. We can’t all be as devoted to Santa as you were.”

“Ha. Ha. You aren’t funny, Jon.”

“Wait. How old were you when you figured it out, Robb?” Arya asked.

Robb didn’t answer.

“Eleven,” Jon said, grinning. “And he’d probably still believe if he hadn’t found the presents stashed in the trunk of Dad’s car!”

“Not funny, Jon.” 

Arya thought it was hilarious, although a part of her was a little jealous that Robb had held on that long. Christmas Eve was definitely better when you believed in Santa. Or maybe it was just better when Dad was there. Or when Mom wasn’t sad. She liked her IPod, but she still didn’t think she much liked this Christmas too terribly much. “I want to help.”

“No,” both boys said.

“I don’t believe in Santa.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jon said. “You still get presents from him. And Christmas morning is still kind of magic when you see the stuff all set up down there. Even knowing it was Mom and Dad.”

“You still get presents, too,” she protested.

“Yeah, but we’ve already got to be surprised in the morning a lot more years than you have. Mom shouldn’t have to do it all by herself so we’re the obvious candidates,” Robb said. “Uncle Benjen had the idea, but we should have come up with it ourselves.” 

“Uncle Ben called you, too?”

“No. He called Jon and told Jon to tell me.”

Jon wasn’t looking at either of them, and it hit Arya that Jon was keeping something from Robb just like he was from her. She wanted to know what it was, but if she demanded to know now, it would just make Robb mad to realize Jon was keeping secrets from him. And Mom did need help with presents so she’d rather her brothers not be fighting. Robb and Jon were usually best friends. But when they did fight, it could get pretty ugly.

“So when do you do it? The presents, I mean?”

“After you’re asleep,” Jon said. “Come on, Arya. Go to bed.”

“What if I don’t go to bed?”

“Then we’ll just have to duct tape you to the wall of your room,” Jon said very seriously causing Robb to laugh out loud.

She didn’t think they’d carry through with that threat. But if they thought she was awake, they’d come up with some way to keep her in her room, and she felt like she needed to follow them. She wanted to know what Jon was really up to. So she said, “Fine,” and made a production of being annoyed as she kind of stomped back to her room.

It was hard to stay awake lying in her bed in the dark, but after what seemed like forever, she heard her door open. One of them was checking on her. She held very still and kept her eyes closed. She waited for awhile after her door closed again before tiptoeing out into the hall. She didn’t see anyone so she made her way to the stairs.

Going down the stairs was terrifying as there was nowhere to hide, but she made it to the first floor without seeing anyone. She could hear them now, though.

“Put that over there for now, Jon.” Mother’s voice. “We’ll have to assemble it. And set up all the little men. You know how you always liked the toys ready to play with.”

Jon laughed. “I never thought about you and Dad setting up battles in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, those aren’t bad. Kind of fun, actually. It’s the doll houses that kill you. A million stickers to apply. Fortunately for you two, Sansa is beyond those now, and they were never Arya’s favorites.” She paused. “Oh, don’t let me forget the Star Wars stuff. It’s up in my bedroom.”

Those words made Arya realize she had to move. Mom and the boys were back with the Christmas tree. If she went to the side of the house toward the garage, she could avoid Mom coming this way, and she could keep out of sight in the little alcove of the doorway that led directly out onto the driveway from the side of the house. She scurried there and sat down leaning against the wall. It was harder to hear them from here, but she could if she concentrated.

“Look at this stuff, Jon!” Robb said after awhile. “Bran and Rickon have three new ships from Revenge of of the Sith.”

“They’re okay,” Jon said. “Still not as cool as the Royal Naboo Starship we got the Christmas after Phantom Menace came out. That thing was huge and it did so much stuff!”

“I loved that thing! Whatever happened to it?”

Arya heard her mother’s voice then but couldn’t make out what she was saying. She wasn’t sure if it was because her mother spoke more quietly than the boys or because she was falling asleep. She couldn’t fall asleep, though.

“Ow! What the . . .”

The next thing Arya heard was the muffled swearing of a man falling over her. Her side hurt. He must have kicked her. She blinked her eyes and they gradually focused on the face of her uncle.”

“Uncle Benjen?” she mumbled, confused as to why her uncle would be in her bedroom kicking her.

“God almighty, child. No wonder we used to call you Arya Underfoot. Are you all right? What on earth are you doing here?”

“I’m . . .” Slowly she recalled where she was. “What are you doing here? You aren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow! Or is it tomorrow?”

He smiled at her. “Technically, it’s tomorrow. It’s just past one in the morning. Are you sure I didn’t hurt you?”

“Yeah. Not much anyway. But, I thought you were coming really tomorrow. Like in the daytime.”

“Well, I . . .”

“Uncle Ben, is that you? What was all that racket? You nearly woke Mom!”

“Jon?”

“Arya? What are you doing down here?”

“Tripping me,” Uncle Ben said. “Although I don’t think she meant to, seeing as how she was asleep. Catelyn’s in bed?”

“No. But she was pretty tired. I had her sit down on the couch while Robb and I finished some stuff up, and she fell asleep.”

“In there by the tree?”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect. If you’re finished playing Santa Claus, get your brother up to bed then.”

“I want to see . . .”

“You’ve got all day tomorrow, Jon. Give them this.” Uncle Benjen twisted up his mouth. “She isn’t going to throw things at him, is she?”

“I don’t think so.” Jon twisted his own mouth, and Arya would have laughed if she were more conscious. The two of them looked a lot alike. “But she was pretty mad earlier.”

“He’s half convinced she’s going to throw him out.”

“Not a chance,” Jon said. “Even if she does throw something.” 

“Wait a minute,” Arya said. “Are you talking about . . .”

“Dad,” Jon said. “He found somebody who was driving part of the way here and was willing to give him a lift. He called Ben to see if he could meet him and bring him the rest of the way.”

“Daddy’s here? Where is he? I wanna see him!” Arya no longer felt the slightest bit sleepy.

“He’s been through a hell of couple days, Arya,” her uncle said. “And a long miserable road trip today. He wants to see your mother and . . . apologize or grovel or do whatever it is old married men do when they screw up badly enough to really piss off their wives.”

Arya knew her mother needed to see her father probably more than any of them, but she still felt like she had to see him herself. She had to see _them._ She had to know it was really all right. Then she realized she could do that if she was smart. “Okay, she said. “I’ll go to bed.” She tried to pout a little. “But I don’t want Robb to catch me down here awake.”

Jon shook his head at her. “You’ve been set on spying on me since Uncle Ben called me, haven’t you?”

She nodded.

“Okay, little sister, you now know my big secret. Dad’s home and tomorrow morning we’ll wake up to find him and Mom both here. Satisfied?”

She nodded again. 

“Give me five minutes, Arya, and I’ll have Robb upstairs. Then you come on up and go to bed, and Uncle Ben’ll send Dad in to find Mom.” He looked at his uncle. “Mom already had the front guest room made up for you, so you can go on up there, I guess.”

“Thanks for all the help, Jon. Your dad didn’t want me to involve any of you kids, but it sure made this easier.”

“Why didn’t you tell Robb, though?” Arya asked suddenly.

“Dad wants to surprise her,” Jon said. “You’ve known Robb all your life, Arya. Is there any way he could have kept this a secret all day long from Mom?” 

She laughed. “No.” Robb couldn’t keep anything from Mom. From anybody else, yes. But not Mom.

“Good night, Arya,” he said, ruffling her hair and kissing the top of her head.

“Good night, Jon.”

She waited with her uncle until they heard the boys go upstairs. “Okay, little girl, that’s our cue,” he said. “See you in the morning, Arya Underfoot.” He laughed and shook his head and went back out to where she presumed her father was waiting in the car. She was tempted to stay right where she was and throw her arms around Daddy as soon as he walked in the door. But then she’d have to go to bed before he saw Mom. She wouldn’t know if things were all right.

Quickly she made her way to the big room with the Christmas tree. Mom was half sitting up, half lying on the couch, but her eyes were closed. Arya tiptoed around that couch to the bigger one where Mom had hidden Robb’s hockey stick. There was just enough room for her to get behind it and lie down flat. 

She didn’t have to wait long. She heard him come in. She wished she could look at him, but she didn’t want to get caught spying. The thought struck her that maybe she was better at sneaking than Bran after all, and she had to suppress a giggle.

“Cat? Wake up, beautiful. You need to get to bed.”

Her mother made a sort of incoherent sleepy noise. 

“Come on, my love,” her father coaxed. It thrilled Arya just to hear his voice.

“Ned, I’m just . . .” her mother mumbled. “Ned?” She must have woke up because that last ‘Ned’ was spoken in a high, shocked voice. “Ned! Oh Ned, are you really here?”

“I’m really here, Cat. I never should have gone. I’m so sorry I left you here to do Christmas Eve alone.”

“You should be,” Mom said in a choked kind of voice. “Oh, god, I was so mad at you!”

That wasn’t good. Mom sounded like she was crying. Neither of them said anything for a few moments, and Arya couldn’t take it. She slid on the floor so that her head poked out just enough to see around the end of the couch and she saw her parents seated together on the opposite couch. Mom was crying, but she had her arms around Dad’s neck, and her face was against his neck. He was holding on to her. She wasn’t throwing anything or moving away so Arya decided this was kind of good even if she was crying.

“You had every right to be angry, my love. I only hope you can forgive me. I’ve been hoping that with all my heart every mile of the way here.”

“Of course, I forgive you!” Arya let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding when she heard those words. “Do you forgive me for saying such awful things to you on the phone?”

Her father chuckled. “You don’t think I deserved them?”

“Well . . . not all of them.”

“Well then I forgive you for all of those you think were undeserved.”

They were silent again, just sitting there smiling at each other like idiots. Ordinarily, Arya would roll her eyes to see them acting like this, but right now, she thought it was the best thing she’d ever seen in her life.

“How are you here?” her mother asked finally. “You said there were no rental cars?”

“There weren’t. But I was desperate, Cat. Listening to Rickon screaming, the smoke alarm, not knowing what was going on, knowing I’d pissed away my chance to be here with you protecting you all from whatever it was . . . I couldn’t stand it. And then after that last conversation we had . . .”

“That wasn’t a conversation, I’m afraid. It was an angry rant. And I’m sorry. I was just . . .”

“No. You said what you felt. And I needed to hear it. And I decided I was coming home if I had to walk the whole bloody way. I met a man at a gas station with a big truck who was coming this direction. He said he could take me as far as he was going which was a little over halfway. I called Benjen and . . .”

“Benjen! That’s why he didn’t come to dinner! Why didn’t he tell me? I was furious with him!”

“That’s my fault. I wanted to surprise you. I knew we’d never get here until well after the kids were in bed, and I just wanted to . . . I just wanted you.” He stopped talking and stared at her a moment. Now that she had her head up, she was facing in Arya’s general direction, but she didn’t look anywhere except at Dad, and while she couldn’t see Dad’s face, she didn’t think he’d taken his eyes off Mom. “I need you, Cat. I’m no good at all without you.”

“Well, that makes us even, Eddard Stark. Because I’m a pretty miserable human being without you.” She smiled at him. “Just ask your children.”

“How are the children?”

“They miss you. Today was . . . hard. I won’t lie. But we made it through. And we were all together which made it better than it would have been otherwise. I thought about you being entirely alone and I almost couldn’t stand it. I did try to call you.”

“My phone died and I had nowhere to charge it.”

“I was half afraid you didn’t want to speak to me after . . .”

“Never. I’ve been angry with you at times, Catelyn. Undoubtedly, I will be angry with you again. And you with me. But there will never be a time I don’t want to hear your voice.”

“I love you, Ned.” Mom sounded like she might cry again.

“And I love you.” 

Then they started kissing. Arya was thrilled to see it, but as it went on, she started to feel very funny watching them, so she carefully scooted all the way behind the couch again. She was beyond glad that her parents seemed back to their normal selves, but she still wondered how anybody could kiss that long without getting bored of it. 

Finally, her mother said, “I do think the children all liked their gifts.”

“Poor Bran didn’t even get one yet.”

“Well, he didn’t get his Xbox whatever number it is, but he did get a gift, and I think he liked it.”

“What was that?” 

“He took it to his room. I’ll show you in the morning.”

“You didn’t get a gift either. I should have told you where I hid yours so that . . .”

“Oh, I got a gift. I just had to wait longer than everyone else. Maybe I should take it upstairs and unwrap it now.”

“Aren’t you exhausted, Cat?”

“Yes. But I don’t care. I’ve missed you, Ned.”

“I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve missed you, my love. Lying in those stupid hotel beds, thinking about you here . . . You are the best gift I’ve ever had so if you’re truly in the mood to unwrap me, I am perfectly all right with that plan.”

It suddenly hit Arya what her parents were talking about, and she groaned just a tiny bit and then put her hand over her mouth. 

Her parents stopped talking then, and she hoped they weren’t kissing again. After a minute, she realized they were whispering. That was fine with her. She didn’t want to hear any more of what they were saying. 

“Ready for bed then, my love?” Mom said in her normal voice after a bit. “We’ve got an early morning and you will be greeted by very excited children.”

“I can’t wait. Give me your hand, Cat, and I’ll pull you up.” 

She heard them walking and thanked God that they seemed so completely normal with each other and that she had managed to stay hidden.

Then she heard her mother’s voice from the direction of the doorway of the room. “Oh, Arya sweetheart, you might want to go to bed, too. I’m afraid you won’t sleep well on that floor.”

The sound of her name paralyzed her and she lay there unable to move as her father called out in a voice tinged with laughter. “Good night, Arya Undercouch! Love you and see you in the morning!”

She could barely breathe and was mortified at having been caught spying on her parents, but still the sound of their mingled laughter as they walked away made her feel warm all over. She waited a very long time before she crawled out from behind the couch and made her way up the stairs to her bedroom. It occurred to her that she hadn’t even looked at the Christmas presents which had been spread through the room. They simply hadn’t mattered. As embarrassed as she would be when she faced her parents in the morning and as much as she dreaded the inevitable lecture she would eventually get, she couldn’t be unhappy. It was Christmas Eve. Her family was together. And her parents could never be like Myrcella’s in a million years. Theon Greyjoy, of all people, had been right. Her family was real. And her parents were so in love, they were nauseating. But unlike Theon, she hoped they kept looking each other like that no matter how old they got. That thought made her laugh, and Arya Stark fell asleep very early on Christmas morning without a worry in the world and with a smile on her face.


	5. Christmas Eve 2013--Rickon Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rickon hasn't been a baby for a long time, and he's tired of everyone treating him like an afterthought. He's even more tired of feeling that his entire family keeps secrets from him. Yet on a Christmas Eve when old questions finally get answered, he realizes that being older doesn't actually seem to make life any easier.

Rickon Stark rubbed the towel over his thick auburn curls and looked at himself in the mirror. His mother was probably right about him needing a haircut. His always unruly curls were beginning to look pretty shaggy. He’d let her cut it before he went back to school. His older brothers made fun of him for still having Mom cut his hair, but he didn’t care. Mom listened to him and never cut more than he said while the stupid girls at that place they went always made him look like he’d signed up for the Marines or something. 

He dragged a comb through the still very damp curls and grinned at his reflection. His hair had always been curlier than Robb’s or Bran’s. He thought Sansa’s might curl as much as his if it was shorter, but it was hard to say since she’d always worn it halfway down her back so it fell in big loose waves. When he was little, some boys at school told him his hair made him look like a girl. That had made him mad, and he’d refused to get it cut the entire year of second grade out of pure spite. He’d also been sent home three times that year for knocking down some idiot who made fun of his hair. His parents had been less than pleased, but by third grade nobody ever said a thing about his curls anymore so Rickon had considered the various punishments well worth it. After two years of wearing hair so long and shaggy looking that seeing the old pictures did embarrass him a bit, he’d finally relented and let Mom cut it to what she had referred to as a “reasonable” length. He’d pretty much kept it like that ever since then because he liked his curls. It was a matter of pride (Mom called it obstinance), and nobody was going to tell him how to wear his own hair.

A loud banging on the bathroom door interrupted his assessment of his hair’s current state. “Geez, Rick! Are you about finished in there? You’re worse than Sansa!”

Rickon grabbed his robe and pulled the door open to look up at his brother. Bran was the closest to him in age, but he was nearly sixteen. At only twelve, Rickon still had to look up pretty far to look him in the eye. The only sibling he even came close to in height was Arya, and it irritated him to no end. His mother kept saying she thought he might well be the tallest of all of them, but that sure wasn’t happening quickly enough for Rickon. “Keep your shirt on, Bran. The bathroom’s all yours.”

“Well, if I keep my shirt on, it’ll make taking a shower difficult, won’t it?” Bran asked as he walked past him into their shared bathroom.

“Ha. Ha.” For the smartest kid in the family, Bran could tell some of the stupidest jokes. “Speaking of Sansa, has she recovered yet?”

Bran laughed. “Nah. To add insult to injury for the early morning wake-up, Arya managed to beat her into the girls’ bathroom, and I swear she took longer than normal in there just to piss her off. So Sansa just got into the shower herself.”

“Great,” Rickon said sarcastically. “That means at least a half hour til breakfast because Mom won’t serve without the birthday girl there. Are Robb and Jon already hogging the Xbox?”

“Don’t know,” Bran replied with a shrug. “They’re both downstairs already, though.”

Rickon closed the bathroom door behind him and walked out into the corridor just in time to see Arya emerge from her room, dressed and ready for the day. 

“Hey, Rickon!” she said, grinning. “You finally let Bran in the bathroom? You’re as bad as . . .”

“Sansa. I know,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Bran already told me. But at least I never act like she does on my birthday morning so I think you’re both full of crap.”

“Language,” Arya said severely in a scarily accurate impression of their mother. Arya looked pretty much just like Dad if he were a teenage girl which made it even funnier when she came out with Mom’s voice and expressions. She could only hold the mildly disapproving Mom face for a few seconds though, and then she grinned. “She was hilarious this morning, wasn’t she?” Her face morphed into one of Sansa’s long-suffering expressions—she was nearly as good at Sansa as she was at Mom. “Seriously, Daddy? Is this really necessary still? I am TWENTY years old!”

Rickon grinned back at Arya. That’s exactly what his older sister had said when they’d burst in on her and begun singing this morning. She’d thrown her pillow at Jon and called him an asshole when he took her picture which had earned her the disapproving Mom face and a censure for language. Rickon had laughed his head off at that because Sansa got lectures from Mom less than any of them. Except maybe Bran. Bran definitely did more stuff that Mom would disapprove of than Sansa—probably as much as the rest of them—but he was way better at not getting caught.

Playing along with Arya’s reenactment of the events in Sansa’s room, Rickon put on his best Dad voice. It wasn’t that great, but Arya would appreciate it. “Of course you are twenty years old, Princess. Twenty years old TODAY, which means it’s entirely necessary for all of us to celebrate and serenade you.”

Without missing a beat, Arya continued playing Sansa. “But Jon and Robb don’t have to put up with it on their birthdays anymore!” To be fair, Arya put a lot more whine into that statement that Sansa actually had, but it made it funnier.

“Robb and Jon have not been at Winterfell on their last two birthdays so . . .”

“I am not deaf, and you two are not funny!” Sansa’s voice from behind the closed door of the girls’ bathroom interrupted Rickon’s attempt at imitating the annoyingly reasonable voice his father tended to use when explaining things he knew the kids didn’t really want explained. Sansa didn’t sound angry though. Once she was fully awake, she actually was a pretty good sport most of the time.

“We’re hilarious,” Arya called back. “And hurry up. I’m starving, and you know Mom won’t feed us without you!”

“Well . . .” Sansa drew the one syllable word out to about three.

Arya rolled her eyes. “Great,” she said to Rickon. “I’ve probably just ensured that she’ll take forever. Get dressed, and we’ll go kick the grownups off the Xbox.” She dropped her voice about an octave when she said ‘grownups’ which was her term for Jon and Robb when they acted like they were a hundred years older than everybody else. She used it for Sansa sometimes, too, since Sansa was in her second year of college.

Rickon went to his room to get some clothes as Arya headed down the stairs. Most of the time it was only Arya, Bran, and him at home now. Well, Robb had technically moved back home in June, but he was never there. And Arya was never home, really. She was a senior this year, and she’d finally gotten Mom and Dad to accept that she wasn’t breaking up with Gendry no matter how much they grounded her. He was actually a pretty cool guy. Mom and Dad had never really objected to him as a human being. It was the fact that he was four years older than Arya that was the problem. But after this past summer of entirely too many knock-down, drag-out fights, and Arya being perpetually grounded, Dad had actually asked Gendry to come over to the house and sat him down and talked to him, just the two of them for a very long time. Then he and Mom had talked to Arya and Gendry together for just as long. Rickon never learned exactly what was said that day, but afterward, Gendry was allowed at the house, and Arya was allowed to date him. Mom and Dad put limits on where she could go (which Rickon was pretty sure she ignored whenever she could get away with it), and she had to check in with them pretty often (which she actually did without too much protest), and everyone in the house was happier.

Only Arya was home even less than before. And Bran would be sixteen in two months. Once he started driving, Rickon figured he’d be gone all the time, too. He’d promised Rickon they’d go places together, but Rickon had heard those promises before. From all the others as they’d gotten driver’s licenses and then cars. They took their friends places, not their baby brother.

As he headed downstairs in search of Arya and the oldest two boys, Rickon wondered for the millionth time if it might have been better if his parents had decided to have just one more kid—just one to be younger than he was. Or at least didn’t wait so long between Bran and him. He’d just started middle school. He wouldn’t even get to high school until Bran was away at college. All the others got to be in high school at the same time as a brother or sister. He was like the family afterthought.

“Wow, Robb. Are you really sure about this?” Jon’s voice came from big formal parlor where the tree was. So his brothers weren’t in the game room.

“I love her, Jon. I really do. And you know I’ve never said that before.”

Rickon almost laughed then. Robb had been _in love_ pretty much non-stop for as long as Rickon could remember—with about a million different girls. Off the top of his head, he could remember that Frey girl he used to run around with whenever they went to Grandpa Hoster’s—she lived not far from there and had an even bigger family than Rickon’s—seemed like a hundred brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. Rickon used to play with a couple of her nephews, but they were kind of jerks. Roslin had seemed okay, though. And then there was that Jeyne girl from high school. Not Sansa’s friend, another Jeyne. There were a bunch more from high school, but none of them had been around longenough for Rickon to bother with their names. He brought some girl home from college two Christmases ago that nobody had actually liked. And now he was dating somebody else from college. But Rickon hadn’t met her. 

“Jon!” Jon now said dramatically. “I think I’m in love!” Rickon stifled his laughter at his oldest brother’s impersonation of Robb. Jon was generally a pretty serious guy, but he could be funny as heck sometimes. “Seriously, Robb, how many times have you said those exact words to me?”

“Too many,” Robb said. He sounded deadly serious, and it struck Rickon as odd that Jon was being funny and Robb was not. It was like his brothers had switched personalities or something. “I’m an idiot who thinks with my dick, remember? How many times have you told me that?”

If he hadn’t been certain of it before, Rickon was now very sure that he shouldn’t be listening to this conversation, so of course, he moved closer to the door so that he could hear better. As the baby of the family, no one ever told him anything, so he’d decided long ago that he was perfectly within his rights to find out important things on his own. And neither his mother’s lectures on people’s rights to privacy or his siblings’ fits of outrage when they caught him had changed his opinion. He knew perfectly well that Bran used to listen to other people in the family talk all the time. He just didn’t seem to care about it anymore because he was too busy making sure no one heard him when he planned things like sneaking out with the Reeds.

“To be fair, I’ve said that more often about Theon than you, Robb,” Jon responded, now sounding as serious as Robb.

“True. But I wasn’t much better than Theon for awhile there, Jon, and you know it.”

“You were always better than Theon, Robb. You always will be.”

“Hey! Theon’s not so bad. I mean he’s a bit of an asshole and God knows he’s a slut, but . . .”

“He’d have your back any day of the week no matter what for,” Jon acknowledged. “Hell, he’d probably even have mine if you asked him, and he and I just sort of tolerate each other. But you are a better man than Theon Greyjoy, Robb. And that would be true even if you weren’t my brother.”

There was silence then, and Rickon risked moving just enough to see into the parlor. Jon was sitting on one of the sofas, and Robb was standing with his back to him, looking at a window, and Rickon got the impression he had just walked there.

“I’m not your brother, Jon,” Robb said softly. “Not by blood.”

Jon actually jumped up off the sofa. “What the hell?!? Why would you even say something like that?”

Robb turned around to face Jon, and Rickon quickly jerked back behind the door frame, but not before he caught sight of his brother’s face. Robb looked kind of wrecked.

“I’m saying it because it’s true. And don’t look at me like that. You’ll always be my brother, Jon. You know that. It’s just . . . look at the two of us. When it comes to women, you definitely take after your father and it seems that I take after . . . mine.”

As Rickon tried to wrap his head around the fact that Robb had actually just referred to Dad as ‘your father’ rather than ‘our father,’ Jon spoke. “Oh, come on, Robb! I never should have even told you all that crap Uncle Arthur told me. He’s never been one to say much good about Starks. Mom’s the person you should talk to if you’re really bothered by all that. See what she has to say. Or Dad.”

“Your uncle isn’t as shitty as he used to be since he got married. And it isn’t just him who said it. Your aunt’s the one who told Ned about it, and she ought to know.”

“Sometimes I wish Ned could keep his mouth shut. He tells Arya everything he knows, and I guess now, he’ll be telling Sansa, too!”

Ned Dayne then--Jon’s cousin through his birth mother. That’s who they were talking about. Arya and Ned Dayne had been friends since elementary school—the kind of friends who were either beating each other up or totally inseparable depending on the day. Bran had told Rickon Ned was totally in love with Arya for the longest time, but Arya had no use for boyfriends at all until Gendry came along, and then poor Ned didn’t stand a chance. Rickon couldn’t really see Ned and Arya as a couple anyway—they acted more like he and Arya did together or Bran and Arya. Still, when Ned went to the same college Sansa attended this past fall and ended up dating her, Arya had been furious in spite of the fact that she and Gendry couldn’t seem to go five minutes without touching each other. Ned was supposed to come to Christmas Eve dinner tonight. Maybe Rickon could get some information out of him.

“Look, Robb,” Jon was saying now. “If you tell me that you really love her and want to marry her, then none of this family history bullshit means anything anyway. And neither does your own history. You haven’t cheated on her, have you?”

“No,” Robb said softly. “I don’t ever want to do that to her. I want what Mom and Dad have, Jon. And I want it with Marg.”

“Well? Then go ahead and ask her, you big idiot. All she can say is no.”

“You don’t think I’m crazy?”

“I know you’re crazy, but that’s been true since you were about five so I’m not going to start worrying about it now. If Margaery hasn’t figured out that you’re crazy already that’s her problem. If you want to marry this girl, brother, then I’ll stand up right beside you when you do it.”

Marry this girl? Robb’s talking about getting married? Rickon tried to imagine his brother as a married man and failed completely. He was barely out of college! Jon had graduated more than a year ago—he had a cool job and an apartment in town that he shared with a friend named Sam, but Robb had just graduated in May, right after his birthday. He was living here in Winterfell and working for Dad for a year while he decided if he wanted to stick with business or maybe go to law school. Jon had known he wanted to go into law enforcement since he was Rickon’s age, and Rickon thought his job sounded way more exciting than anything Robb was considering. 

Robb kind of laughed. “Well, Marg’s got a whole year of school left, so you don’t have to worry about standing up in a tux any time soon. I just want to make it official, you know. I want to make the commitment. So she knows it. So I know it.” Robb paused. “I need to know if I can really do this or if I’m too much like . . .”

“Would you shut the fuck up already?” Jon interrupted. “You were raised by the same man I was, you know. And you do share his blood as well, since that whole blood thing is suddenly so important to you. And as far as Uncle Brandon is concerned, our mother loved him, so he couldn’t have been such a terrible guy whatever rumors made their way to the Daynes. Oh, and by OUR mother, I mean that woman who didn’t give me a drop of her blood, so I need you to get off this genetics kick right now because if you try and tell me she’s less my mother than yours, I will fight you.”

“Yeah. Mom would fight me, too.” There was a long sort of pause and then Robb continued. “But thinking about Mom is why this worries me. She’s told me over and over again how Brandon Stark loved her and how proud he’d be of me. How happy he would have been to know I was on the way. And I believe her. I mean . . . Mom’s not that easy to lie to, so he must have loved her, right? But even though he loved her, he . . . I mean not all the stories can be made up. And with YOUR mother of all people? How messed up is that?”

As Rickon tried to work out what they were talking about, Jon said, “Look, if it even happened, it happened before she and Dad ever knew each other, and . . . well, Mom and Uncle Brandon wouldn’t have been engaged yet at least, so . . .”

“Hey! What are you doing? I’ve been waiting in the game room for . . .”

Rickon turned to see his sister walking toward him talking entirely too loudly so he hurried as far from the parlor door as he could get before she got him caught by Jon or Robb. Arya picked up quickly enough on what he’d been doing, though.

“Who’ve you been listening to, squirt?” she asked. “Hear anything good?”

“Robb’s getting engaged,” he said as they walked back toward the game room.

“What?” Arya shrieked in an unnaturally high voice. Usually, she didn’t sound as girly as Sansa, but she did have her moments, and this was one of them. “Are you kidding me? Who said?” She had turned around to head back to the parlor and start quizzing whomever she might find, but Rickon grabbed her arm.

“Stop! You can’t go in there. They’ll know I listened.”

“Who cares? This is big news. Come on, Rickon! I’ll tell him it was me!”

“No, Arya!” Rickon almost begged. “I heard them talking about other stuff, too, and . . .” He shook his head. He wasn’t certain about all of it, but he was pretty sure they’d been saying that Robb’s birth father had cheated on Mom, and unless he was mistaken, that he’d done it with Jon’s birth mother—which was just gross and weird, and Rickon didn’t want to think about it.

Arya stopped. “What stuff?”

Rickon shook his head. Then he remembered what Jon had said about Arya and Ned Dayne. “You already know it. Jon said Ned Dayne told you, and I guess you told Robb.”

She looked blank for just a moment and then said, “Oh. That. Rickon, you can’t tell anybody that, okay? I mean Mom and Dad would . . . just don’t say anything.”

“You don’t think Mom and Dad know?” he asked, just hoping they were talking about the same thing.

She shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. But I don’t imagine they’d want us knowing in any event. The whole Aunt Lyanna thing was a big enough scandal, huh?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Rickon said, scowling. “Nobody ever told me anything about it.”

Arya gave him a disbelieving look which annoyed Rickon greatly. Everyone in the family seemed to just assume he knew things. Nobody ever thought it important to actually tell him anything. Or if they didn’t think he knew something, then they just figured he was too young to hear about it anyway. It got very old.”

“She’s dead,” he told Arya flatly. “That’s all I know.”

“Oh, come on,” she said, pulling him into the game room. “You know more than that.”

“Okay, then. Seriously, here is all I know about our Aunt Lyanna.” Rickon paused a moment to think. “She fooled around with some married guy. They were killed in a car crash. His father shot and killed our grandfather and Uncle Brandon and got locked away in a nut house. And in the weirdest plot twist ever, the married guy’s wife is now Jon’s aunt since she married his Uncle Arthur.” Rickon twisted up his face as a thought struck him. “Well it was the weirdest plot twist ever. But if it’s really true about Uncle Brandon and Ashara Dayne—that probably takes the title.” 

“Yeah,” Arya said. “But that’s pretty much all I know about Lyanna. Except that she was young. Like my age when it started. And Rhaegar Targaryen wasn’t just married. He had two kids. So that’s kind of gross. He was a lot older than she was.”

Rickon just stared at her.

“Hey!” She punched his arm. “He was more than four years older, okay? And Gendry doesn’t have a wife and two kids, so it’s not even close to the same! Anyway, I’m not stupid enough to fool around with a married dude.” She shrugged. “Dad loved her a lot, you know. I mean Sansa’s got Lyanna for a middle name, and he tells me sometimes that I remind him of her. Usually he says it smiling, like it’s a good thing. But . . . either she was really stupid or really selfish or there’s more to that story than we know.”

Rickon was somewhat disappointed that Arya didn’t have much to add to his own bare bones knowledge, but oddly pleased that he’d not been as left out as he’d thought and even more pleased by the fact that his sister seemed honestly interested in discussing it with him.

“What about Jon’s aunt? I mean she has to know more. And she seems nicer than his uncle so maybe we could ask . . .”

“No, Rickon.” Arya shook her head like he was an idiot. “You can’t just go up to a woman you barely know and say, ‘Hey, what all can you tell me about my dead aunt who screwed around with your husband? Because I’m really curious.’”

When she put it that way, Rickon was inclined to agree. “Why is she nice, though? To us, I mean. Jon’s uncle has even gotten nicer since he married her, but he never did have as much reason to hate us as she does, did he? So, how come she doesn’t hate us like he did.”

“Don’t ask me to explain it, Rickon. Adults do some really messed up shit, and then they talk to us like they know everything. I mean, you’re only twelve and you can see how messed up Jon’s uncle was. You’re right about him being better about things now, but he really did a number on Jon for years, so he’s still not one of my favorite people.” She shrugged and looked at her watch. “God! Is Sansa ever going to come downstairs? I’m starving!”

Rickon realized he was pretty hungry, too. “We could go into the kitchen and beg Mom,” he suggested. “That’s usually good for at least a few bites.”

Laughing, Arya agreed, and they turned their back on the game room, heading back out toward the kitchen. It occurred to Rickon this was probably the first Christmas Eve ever that no one played video games between Sansa’s wake-up song and breakfast, and that gave him an odd feeling. He hated being treated like a baby. He really did. But he didn’t really want Christmas to change.

A very short while later, Sansa appeared downstairs dressed for the day, looking perfectly beautiful as always, and the family sat around the table gorging themselves on Mom’s delicious blueberry pancakes. Rickon did like blueberry pancakes a lot. On the scale of birthday breakfasts, he’d probably rank Sansa’s just a little below his (chocolate chip pancakes) and Robb’s (bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns); about even with Jon’s (sausage with biscuits and gravy); and well ahead of Arya’s stupid omelettes. At least Mom didn’t put the stupid mushrooms in his. Bran’s breakfasts were either awesome or horrible because, unlike the rest of them, he never picked the same thing so you just didn’t know what you were going to get. Mom always laughed that Bran’s goal was to make her buy out the entire grocery store in February just to be prepared.

Breakfast seemed a pretty relaxed affair. Dad kept finding imaginary syrup on Mom’s face and leaning over to kiss it off which made everyone else at the table groan or roll their eyes. Well, everyone except Robb. Rickon noticed he just watched their parents very closely with a rather serious expression even when everyone else was laughing at something somebody said. Rickon forgot about watching Robb watch Mom and Dad when he realized the latest peal of laughter was over Bran talking about him—telling some stupid lie about how he spent an hour just gazing at his hair in the bathroom mirror that morning.

He threw his napkin across the table at Bran which made Arya, Robb, and Jon laugh and earned him a “Rickon, please” from his mother while his father tried not to laugh. 

“Sorry, Mom,” he said, grinning. “But Bran shouldn’t make stuff up because he’s jealous of my hair.”

That made everyone laugh, including Bran, which made Rickon very happy. Everybody teasing each other was pretty normal for family meals (Mom would shut it down if it got mean), but he was so much younger than everybody else, he’d only recently gotten good at playing along. More recently than he’d like to admit, his responses to teasing comments by his siblings tended to be brilliant remarks like “I do not!” or “I am not a baby!” shouted angrily while tears threatened. Of course, such outbursts were immediately followed up by Mom saying, “Kids, do not pick on your little brother,” which never really accomplished anything except to convince everyone even more that he was a baby.

Attention turned to Sansa as Arya asked if Ned was still coming to dinner or if she’d found another of Arya’s friends to latch onto—maybe somebody from kindergarten. Sansa turned red and told her that she didn’t own Ned Dayne, and that she would date anyone she pleased.

Arya just kind of shrugged and said, “I still think it’s weird.”

“Well Gendry was sort of friends with both me and Robb when he met you, Arya,” Jon put in. “And you were like eight years old or something so imagine how weird that was!”

“I was fourteen!” Arya protested, “And you know it!”

“Enough.” The single word from Dad quelled the impending argument. Mom, more often than not played referee and disciplinarian, but when Dad looked and sounded like that, everyone shut up. 

As everyone sat very still, Mom put her hand over one of Dad’s. Rickon knew he still wasn’t overly thrilled with Arya dating Gendry, and he’d probably be even less thrilled if he knew as much stuff about them as Rickon did. It was kind of weird that his sister wasn’t even eighteen yet, and her boyfriend was over twenty-one—legally allowed to go anywhere and drink anything. He also had a full time job and his own apartment—without even a roommate like Jon.

“So, Robb,” Mom asked brightly while patting Dad’s hand, “Is your young lady still coming this evening?”

Robb looked like a deer caught in headlights for a moment and then sputtered, “Um, yeah. Margaery’s going to be here around three or four. And, um, it’s still okay if she stays over?”

“I’ve already made up a room for her, and . . .” Mom started, but Arya interrupted.

“Hey! Why can’t Gendry stay? You never let . . .”

“Arya,” Dad practically growled.

Mom took a deep breath. “First of all, young lady. You are seventeen years old. No one has ever had guests of the opposite gender stay overnight in this house at your age, and that isn’t going to change.”

Rickon tried very hard not to meet the eyes of any of his older siblings as that statement was completely untrue, and pretty much everyone knew it. Probably even Mom and Dad. But he supposed Mom was choosing to ignore the girlfriends and boyfriends who’d been sneaked in over the years.

“Secondly, Margaery’s family lives even further away than my father, and you know what a long drive that is. She has a flight out in the morning, and it’s ridiculous to have the poor girl spend Christmas Eve in a hotel. Gendry’s apartment is fifteen minutes from here by car!” 

“You could even walk it in less than a half hour, couldn’t you Arya?” Sansa said sweetly.

Arya glared at Sansa, but wisely kept silent. 

“Well, I think I’ve had enough breakfast,” Dad said after a few moments. “It was delicious, as always, my love.” He leaned toward Mom to kiss her again and then started pushing his chair back. Rickon figured he’d just had enough talk about Arya and Gendry.

“Wait,” Robb said suddenly. “Dad . . . there’s something I want to tell you. Well . . . all of you actually.” He took a big breath. Dad stopped moving his chair, and everyone simply looked at Robb in anticipation. Rickon briefly caught Arya’s eye and she mouthed “Here goes” at him.

“I’ve been dating Margaery longer than you realize. I mean . . . we’ve been official since just before I graduated. But, um, I met her when she was a freshman, two years ago, and I liked her right away. And we kind of went on a few dates off and on, and well . . . by this summer we both knew we loved each other, so . . . yeah.”

“What exactly are you saying, son?” Dad asked quietly.

“I want to marry her. I mean, I’m going to marry her . . . if she’ll have me. And I thought I’d ask her tonight so I wanted you all to know so . . . well, I wanted you to know.”

Sansa let out an even higher pitched squeal than Arya had earlier and nearly jumped over the table to hug Robb. Arya was laughing and shaking her head, and Bran just gaped at Robb with a shocked expression. Jon looked pretty normal, but then Rickon knew he’d heard all about this already.

“Congratulations, Robb. Marg’s a great girl,” Jon said emphatically, thumping Robb on the back.

“Oh my gosh, Robb! When? When are you getting married?” Sansa gushed.

“Well, she hasn’t exactly said yes yet,” Robb said laughing nervously. “I haven’t even asked her, Sans.” Robb then looked across the table at Mom and Dad who hadn’t said anything. “Mom? Dad?” he asked, sounding almost scared.

“Marriage is a very big step, Robb,” Dad said quietly. “It isn’t something to do on a whim.”

“I know. I’m not! I . . . I’ve been thinking about this forever, and it’s not like we’ll get married right away or anything. Marg still has to graduate, and if I decide to go to law school, well . . . maybe we’d wait until after that even. I don’t know. And even if I decide to make a career at Stark with you, well . . . I’d still want to get my MBA, so . . . I’m not going to rush this, Dad. I just want her to know—that this is the real thing. That my future includes her all the way. I love her, Dad. I really love her.”

“You live with your parents, Robb,” Bran said, finally speaking.

“This is why I moved back, Bran!” Robb said. “I’m saving a ton of money by living here, and in a couple of years, as long as Mom and Dad don’t decide to kick me out before then, I can have enough for a downpayment on an actual house—or at least get a really nice apartment. No offense, Jon, but I don’t want to move Margaery into a dump like yours and Sam’s. She’s used to nice things. Her family is really wealthy.”

“Does she expect you to buy her the world, Robb?” Mom asked even more softly than Dad had spoken.

“No! She’s never . . . Come on, Mom, you’ve met her. She’s not like that. I just want . . . I want her to have the best.”

Robb had really begun to sound ridiculously sappy, and Rickon couldn’t help rolling his eyes. 

“She already thinks she has the best,” Sansa offered then. “You. She said so when we were all at Riverrun in July.”

Oh yeah. Rickon hadn’t been able to go down for that long weekend because his baseball team had a tournament. He’d stayed with Uncle Ben who’d gone to every game with him and cheered embarrassingly loud when he’d won tournament MVP. His parents hadn’t been there because they’d been in Riverrun meeting Robb’s girlfriend. That had made him really mad at the time, and for a moment he felt angry again thinking about it, but he reminded himself it was the only tournament his mother had ever missed, and that his dad had only ever missed a few. They’d felt really bad about it, too, when they heard what all they missed. But that’s why Rickon was the only one in the family who’d never met this girl who might be joining his family. Jon hadn’t gone on that trip either, but he already knew Margaery because he and Robb pretty much knew everybody in each other’s lives.

“She told you that in July?” Robb asked.

“Yep. She’s gonna say yes for sure,” Sansa beamed.

“Do you like her, Robb?” Mom asked then, and it struck Rickon as an odd question. Robb had just been going on about how much he loved her. 

“I love her, Mom. I love her more than I ever thought I’d love anybody.”

Mom smiled. “I can see that. But do you like her? It’s not the same thing, you know. And it’s just as important.”

“Your mother’s right,” Dad said. “I married my best friend.” Rickon realized his parents were holding hands. “I love this woman with all my heart and soul,” Dad said in a remarkably serious manner. It didn’t sound at all like the declarations of love he usually offered up for stupid reasons like her remembering where he’d put his car keys or saving him the last piece of dessert. Rickon didn’t feel at all like rolling his eyes. He just listened. “And for reasons passing understanding, she loves me, too,” Dad continued.

“Ned,” Mom started, but Dad continued as if she hadn’t spoken. 

“But I like her, too. I mean I like her a lot. Talking to her, listening to her, laughing with her. Watching those ridiculous movies she likes. Spending years trying to get her to appreciate hockey only to have her instantly become the world’s biggest hockey fan when you and Jon started playing, Robb. I like doing all of those things with your mother. Because I truly like who she is as a human being. And that’s every bit as important as the fact that she makes my heart speed up every time she walks in a room and that everything in my world feels more right when I hold her. I love her. And I like her. And she loves and likes me, too. And I want nothing less for you, son. For any of you.”

Nobody spoke for awhile after that. Rickon had never heard his father talk like that. Ever. And it looked like none of the others had either. Mom wasn’t moving, but there were tears in her eyes and even one falling down her cheek. She held Dad’s hand very tightly.

Finally, Robb said, “I want that, too, Dad. I love Margaery, and I do like her. I like her better than anybody I’ve ever met. And I believe she feels the same way about me.”

“Well, then,” Dad said, a slow thoughtful smile spreading over his face, “I suppose congratulations are in order. I do encourage you not to rush to the actual wedding, though. You have plenty of time.”

“I know, Dad.” Robb was grinning from ear to ear now.

“Cat?” Dad said softly, turning to look at Mom who was still sitting silently.

She smiled up at him. “I love you,” she said softly, and then she leaned in to kiss him.

As they continued kissing, Arya rolled her eyes and Bran finally muttered, “Get a room,” which made everyone laugh including Mom and Dad, and everyone pretty much started acting normally again. 

As everyone began to get up from the table, Mom asked Robb if he had a ring for Margaery. He blushed and shook his head. Rickon felt for him on the blushing business. He liked his hair just fine, but the stupid blushing that seemed to come along with it, he could do without. It only looked cute on girls.

“I want something special,” Robb said. “I want it to mean something, and I just couldn’t find what I wanted. I thought maybe I should let her pick something out.”

Mom nodded. “You could do that,” she said, “Or I might have something for you.” She looked at Dad then, who nodded as if he understood exactly what she was talking about.

“Go with your mother, Robb,” he said. “I’ve got the dishes. Can I have another volunteer? Not Sansa—it’s her birthday!”

“I’ll do kitchen duty,” Jon said, grinning. “It makes me feel like a kid again—sleeping in my old bed last night, eating breakfast here—might as well do chores, too!”

Dad laughed. “Come on then, old man of twenty-three—let’s see if living on your own has made you any better at clean-up!”

Rickon looked at Arya, and the two of them raced to the game room to claim the xbox controllers, and Bran and Sansa came in afterward.

“I’ve got winner,” Bran said as Arya put in Madden 13 and she and Rickon began choosing teams.

“What do you suppose Mom meant?” Sansa said, flopping down on the couch and pulling out her phone. Texting Ned, no doubt. Sansa lived on her iPhone. She’d been without it all through breakfast—Mom’s rule—so she was probably in withdrawal.

“About what?” Arya asked absently as she made her team kick off to Rickon’s.

“About having something for Robb. You don’t think she’ll give him her diamond to give to Margaery, do you?”

“Damn!” Arya yelled as Rickon ran the kickoff back for a touchdown with a grin on his face. Arya was probably the best of all of them at the shooter games, but she kinda sucked at the sports ones. Bran would be more competition after he beat her.

“Don’t swear, Arya,” Sansa said. 

“Oh, like you don’t swear a blue streak when you want to,” Arya said rolling her eyes. “And don’t worry. I’m sure Mom won’t give her diamond to anyone but you.”

“Pay attention, Arya,” Rickon said after his defender tackled her kick-off returner as soon as he caught the ball. It wouldn’t be any fun at all beating her if she didn’t even try.

“That’s not what I meant,” Sansa protested. “It’s just that Mom loves that ring. Daddy gave it to her for their tenth wedding anniversary. Rickon was just a baby then, and I know you were little, Arya, but surely you remember how he took the two of us with him to the jewelry store to ‘help’ him pick something out for her.”

“I was almost six. And I remember just fine. He swore us to secrecy, and you told him I was too little to keep a secret, and I called you stupid, and he nearly turned around and drove us home,” Arya said.

“I’d forgotten that part,” Sansa laughed. “You did keep the secret, though. You didn’t even tell Jon. It was kind of fun, wasn’t it? You, me and Daddy having this big secret from Mom and the boys. And when he gave it to her . . .”

“She cried,” Arya said.

“She didn’t like it?” Rickon asked.

“No, stupid! She loved it!” Arya rolled her eyes. 

_Oh,_ Rickon realized. _She cried like she was crying when Dad said all that stuff this morning._ “I was just a baby, remember,” he said to Arya. “How am I supposed to know why it made her cry?”

“I don’t remember it either, Rickon,” Bran said. 

“You were only four,” both girls said at once, and then they laughed.

His sisters’ relationship never ceased to amaze and confuse Rickon. They weren’t anything alike really, but they could finish each other’s sentences almost as well as Robb and Jon did. They were either at each other’s throats or best friends, and they seemed to swing between the two with impossible speed. Maybe all girls were that weird. He didn’t really know any other girls as well as his sisters except for his mother who didn’t count because she was a mom.

“Are you playing or not?” he asked Arya.

“Not,” she said suddenly, shoving the controller at Bran. “You play. I’m talking to Sansa.”

“Great,” Bran said. “Get behind fourteen zip and then let me play.” But he took the controller.

Rickon more or less ignored his sisters’ conversation after that as Bran actually gave him some competition, even managing to score on him twice before going down to inevitable defeat.”

“Ha!” Rickon crowed triumphantly just as Jon entered the game room. 

“Losing to Rickon at football again, Bran?” Jon said. “You should make him play something else. Nobody beats Rickon at football.”

“Yeah, well maybe I’d have beaten him if Arya didn’t spot him two touchdowns,” Bran groused.

“Where’s Robb?” Sansa asked.

“Likely getting subjected to a lot of parental questioning and sage advice,” Jon laughed. “He and Mom hadn’t come back down when we finished the dishes, and Dad went up there.”

“What do you suppose Mom is going to give him?” Arya asked. “We can’t imagine her giving up her diamond ring.”

Jon shrugged.

“Maybe she’ll give him her old one?” Rickon suggested. “I mean she only wears that one diamond ring with her wedding band all the time, so maybe she’ll give Robb the one Dad gave her first.”

Jon shook his head. “Mom didn’t have an engagement ring, Rick. They just kind of decided to get married and did. There wasn’t much fancy about it. Her anniversary ring’s the only one Dad’s ever given her as far as I know—except for her wedding band.”

“I thought everybody got engagement rings,” Rickon said, feeling sort of stupid, but honestly curious.

“Nope. It’s not a rule,” Jon said. “Ygritte would probably hate one. She won’t wear jewelry at all.” Ygritte was Jon’s girlfriend. She was a police officer, too, and had to work today or she’d probably be coming to Christmas Eve dinner, too.

“Well, it doesn’t matter because she won’t marry you anyway,” Arya teased.

“Sure she will,” Jon said. “Eventually. I’m in no hurry, though. To quote Dad, I love Ygritte, and I like her. But . . . Sam’s a much better cook than either of us, so I’d hate to move out. Ygritte and I might starve!”

“Nah, you live close enough. Mom would keep you fed,” Arya assured him.

“Do you think Mom has her mother’s ring or something?” Sansa wondered aloud.

“Um, yeah, she has it. But she won’t give that to Robb,” Arya said, looking almost embarrassed.

“How do you know about it?” Sansa asked.

“Because it’s for me,” Arya mumbled. Everyone stared at her. “She showed it to me once, okay? This girl at school saw my middle name on some dumb form and started making fun of it and got a bunch of her friends to make fun of it, and I hated it.”

“Hated your middle name or hated being made fun of? Because I like your . . .” Sansa started.

“Both,” Arya said. “Look, I was eight or nine years old, all right? Being made fun of made me hate the name and so I came crying to mom to change it to something normal. So she told me that I was named after her mother, and that even though Minisa is old fashioned, it’s beautiful and that her mother was as beautiful as her name. She showed me a bunch of old pictures of our grandmother and then she got out the ring and showed me. The diamond’s littler than hers is, but it’s pretty. The band’s silver instead of gold and I honestly like it better. But anyhow, she told me it was mine.”

“And did it make you like your name better?” Jon asked her.

“Arya Minisa Stark?” Arya laughed. “It’s certainly one of a kind. But I like it okay. It’s a hell of lot more original than Jon!” She stuck her tongue out at him, and everybody laughed.

“Mom never told me any of that,” Sansa said. “She just showed me Grandma Lyarra’s ring once and told me I’d have it someday. I never said anything to you because I didn’t want you to feel bad.”

Arya laughed. “Well, I guess I kinda never mentioned Grandma Minisa’s for the same reason. But that makes two rings we know she isn’t giving Robb.”

“Maybe if she didn’t have an engagement ring, she’s giving Robb something else,” Rickon said. “Hey!” he yelled as a thought struck him. “Didn’t Dad propose to Mom on Christmas Eve? Maybe she’s just giving him tips on how Dad did it.”

Sansa looked vaguely uncomfortable then, Jon bit his lip and looked down, and Arya burst out laughing.

“Um, yeah, Rick. I don’t think that’s it,” Bran said.

“But didn’t Dad ask Mom to marry him on Christmas Eve? I know that’s what they said.”

“Well, yeah,” Jon said, finally looking up at him. Now Rickon could see he was trying not to laugh. “He sort of made the suggestion in a library, and Mom told him he was crazy and turned him down. So . . . not exactly what Robb’s going for tonight.”

Arya laughed even harder.

“Mom turned him down?” Rickon was stunned. “Why would she do that? You heard him at breakfast. They’re like . . . romantic enough to make you puke!”

Arya howled then, and the other three all began laughing as well.

“It isn’t funny! Would you all just shut up and tell me already!” Rickon felt his cheeks getting hot, and it made him even angrier. “Do you think it’s fun being the only person around here who doesn’t know everything all the time? It isn’t fair!”

“I’m sorry, Rickon,” Jon said, the laughter leaving his face. “I guess we just didn’t realize you didn’t know the whole story. I’m afraid Dad’s original proposal to Mom wasn’t very romantic at all. I mean, you know that Robb and I were both born before they got married, right?”

Now, Rickon rolled his eyes. “I’m not five years old, Jon. I know your mother was the lady with dark hair in the picture in the hall—Ashara Dayne. It hasn’t escaped my notice that you have a whole other family, and I know that Mom was going to marry Dad’s brother Brandon at one point and that he was Robb’s dad. None of that is exactly a secret, but then Mom and Dad fell in love so why couldn’t Dad come up with a decent proposal?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Arya said, still laughing even as she spoke. “I mean, ‘Hey, it really sucks that my brother knocked you up and then died, but here’s a thought—I’ve got a kid whose other parent is dead, too, so how about we just marry each other and raise them both?’ What could possibly be more romantic than that?”

“Shut up, Arya! Don’t ever talk that way about our parents again.”

Rickon looked from his sister to the doorway to see his brother Robb standing there with a look of cold fury on his face.

“Oh, come on, Robb,” Arya said. “They’re the ones who told us that the first time they ever considered getting married was for you and Jon. I think it’s kind of sweet, really, but Dad probably sounded about that idiotic when he came out with it, and it’s a wonder that Mom didn’t decide he was certifiably insane and run as far as she could. But she didn’t. And they fell in love, and they got married, and all of us are here so lighten up already.”

“It isn’t funny,” Robb repeated. 

Rickon had been working out what Arya had. “Mom was pregnant with you when Dad asked her to marry him then, right Robb?”

Robb turned toward Rickon and nodded. “I wasn’t even born. He’d never even seen me. And he was already asking to be my father. And I don’t see anything funny about that at all.”

That pretty much shut everybody up. Even Arya. Finally, Rickon asked, “So if she told him no on that Christmas Eve, when did he ask her again?”

“He didn’t,” Sansa said softly. “She asked him. Or at least, she told him that she thought he wasn’t crazy after all, and then they got married. Robb was nearly a year old then, and Jon was almost two.”

Rickon looked around at his brothers and sisters. “How come I’m the only one who doesn’t know this story?”

“I don’t know, Rickon,” Jon said. “Robb and I have always kind of known it because Mom and Dad were always really careful about us knowing who our birth parents were but also knowing that we both belonged to Mom and Dad. And I guess Sansa and Arya and even Bran were old enough to get pulled into conversations when we were still little enough to ask lots of questions.” He kind of shrugged. “You’re almost four years younger than Bran, Rick. I guess we’d just kinda stopped talking about it by the time you were old enough to listen.”

“Yeah. Just like everything else.”

“Rickon, we never meant to . . .” his sister started.

“It’s okay, Sansa,” Rickon said, and he almost meant it. He knew his siblings didn’t intentionally exclude him. He knew his parents didn’t intentionally keep stuff from him that they told his brothers and sisters. He’d never actually asked them about how they got married—not specifically. But somehow, it still hurt being the last one to know everything. 

“Robb!” Arya said suddenly. “What did Mom give you? For Margaery, I mean? Did she give you some kind of ring or . . .”

“Yeah,” Robb said. “She gave me hers.” He didn’t sound as excited about this as Rickon thought he would.

“Hers? The diamond Daddy gave her?” Sansa asked, sounding stunned.

Robb shook his head. “No.” 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box which he handed to Sansa. She took it and drew in her breath when she opened it.

“It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed, and Arya rushed to see it as well.

“Where did Mom get this?” Arya asked.

“From Brandon Stark,” Robb said, his voice sounding rather flat. “Your uncle. My . . . father.”

“Of course!” Sansa exclaimed. “They were engaged when he died. It makes sense that he gave her a ring. And this really is exquisite, Robb!”

“Wait a minute,” Rickon said. “Uncle Brandon gave her a ring? And Dad didn’t? How lame is that? I mean Dad seriously dropped the ball there!”

“Rickon,” Jon said more harshly than he usually spoke to him. He wasn’t looking at him, though. He was looking at Robb. “It was a long time ago, and the whole situation was complicated. Trust me, it doesn’t matter whether or when Dad gave her a ring. Just let it go already.”

Sansa handed the ring box back to Robb. “Margaery will love it. She’s going to say yes, Robb. I know she will!”

“Yeah. I know she will, too. She loves me.” Robb’s voice still sounded wrong.

“You love her, too, brother,” Jon said, coming to put his hand on Robb’s shoulder. “We were all at breakfast this morning. You love Marg like our father loves our mother, and that’s a hell of a lot.”

Jon had emphasized the word ‘our’ both times he said it, and it made Rickon think back to the earlier conversation he’d heard between Jon and Robb. It seemed to him that maybe there were things about the family that even the older kids didn’t really know for sure, and that they didn’t like it any better than he did. At least Mom and Dad were alive to talk to all of them if they asked. He thought it was probably harder for Jon and Robb because Ashara Dayne and Uncle Brandon were dead. They couldn’t ask them questions even if they wanted to. Rickon never really thought about his two oldest brothers any differently than Bran and his sisters, but he supposed it was different to have a third parent you didn’t really know. And from what he’d heard earlier, he thought maybe Robb didn’t really like his other father very much.

“It’s your proposal, Robb,” he said suddenly. “You don’t have to give Margaery any ring unless you want to. Dad didn’t give one to Mom, and that turned out okay. Maybe it’s luckier not to have a ring.”

Robb looked up at him, and kind of smiled. “You’re a good kid, Rickon. But Sansa’s right. It’s a beautiful ring, and Margaery will love it. Besides, it means a lot to Mom.” He stood up. “I guess I’d better go work on my speech.”

“Are you gonna ask her in front of everybody?” Bran asked.

Robb shook his head. “That’s too much pressure. So if I wander off with Marg this evening, none of you better follow us around. Are you clear on that?”

“Crystal,” Arya said, grinning.

“I mean it,” Robb threatened.

“I’ll sit on her,” Jon promised.

“And I’ll watch Bran,” Sansa added.

“Hey!” Bran and Arya said together. 

“Baby boy sneaks around more than anyone these days,” Arya said, nodding at Rickon.

“I won’t follow you, Robb,” Rickon promised, and he meant it.

“Thanks, bud.” Robb left, nearly colliding with their mother who came in to announce she was doing the absolute final run on wrapping Christmas presents so if anyone had anything else they needed help wrapping, come to her room now or be out of luck.

Sansa, Arya, and Bran all jumped up and ran out, leaving Jon and Rickon alone in the game room.

“He doesn’t want to give Margaery that ring, does he?” Rickon asked Jon.

“What makes you say that, Rickon?” Jon asked carefully.

“I’m not stupid, that’s what. He looked miserable, not happy. And if Mom wants him to do it, he’ll do it whatever he wants because Robb can’t stand it when Mom’s upset.”

Jon sighed. “You aren’t stupid, Rickon. That’s for sure. Maybe if you worked half as hard at figuring out your homework as you do figuring out all of us, you wouldn’t get in trouble over your grades as much.”

“Hey! My grades are better this year.” Rickon shrugged. He didn’t like school that much, but it wasn’t really that difficult, and he’d finally gotten old enough to realize it was a lot more painless to just do the work and get it over with than to suffer the consequences of not doing it. He’d only had one C on his report card all semester—the rest were A’s and B’s—and his mother had gotten so excited about it, you’d have thought he made straight A’s like Bran always did. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

“No, because I can’t read Robb’s mind, and neither can you so I can’t really tell you exactly what he thinks about giving that ring to Margaery. You’re right about him and Mom, though. And that comes from a bunch of stuff a long time ago that you know nothing about.”

“Oh, surprise, surprise,” Rickon said.

Jon frowned at him. “I doubt Bran or even the girls know much about it, Rickon. So you can stop acting like this family is just one big conspiracy to keep secrets just from you.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I think this family has too many secrets for anybody to know them all, but maybe all families are like that. Anyway, I’ll tell you about when Robb and I were little if you want—and what it was like for Mom.”

That surprised Rickon. Jon was his oldest brother—more than eleven years older. He’d gone away to college just before Rickon turned seven and spent two summers during college away doing internships first with the state police and then with the FBI. Unlike Robb, he’d never moved back full time after graduating, so Rickon barely remembered living with Jon in the house all the time. Yet Jon was here talking to him as if he was practically grown up.

“Yeah. I want to hear.”

Jon sighed. “You know Grandpa Hoster, right?”

“Of course. He’s our grandfather.”

“He’s your grandfather,” Jon corrected. “Don’t get me wrong. I like the old guy, and I think he likes me, too. And your Uncle Edmure’s one of my best friends. But when I was little, old Hoster made a definite distinction between Robb and me. Robb was his blood. I wasn’t. Mom and Dad were well aware of it, and it bothered them, but they couldn’t change it. I think it especially bothered mom because Grandpa Hoster is her dad.”

“That bothered Robb, then? That our grandpa made you feel bad?”

Jon smiled. “Robb didn’t even notice that. He can be pretty oblivious sometimes. But one summer, we stayed at Riverrun for nearly three weeks. That’s when Dad worked for Robert Baratheon, before he quit for good and went back to revitalize Stark Capital with Uncle Benjen. Anyway, he was gone a lot more then. I was maybe six or so and Robb was about five, I guess. Anyhow, Mom was miserable. She was really, really pregnant with Arya. I think she was born about a month later, and she missed Dad, and she and Uncle Hoster argued a lot—whether it was about me or something else I don’t know. But one evening, Robb and I found a bunch of old photo albums and when we started going through them, there were a ton of pictures of Mom from college. And there were lots of her with Uncle Brandon. We thought the pictures were funny. Mom and Dad had always told us about our birth parents so we weren’t shocked or anything. There were two pictures of her and Uncle Brandon kissing, and that made us laugh because the idea of seeing Mom kiss anybody except Dad was so weird, so we took those and stuck them in her face at dinner, laughing like hyenas, and she laughed with us and Hoster asked what was so funny, and Robb handed him one of the pictures and said, ‘Look, Grandpa! Mommy’s kissing my other Daddy. My heaven-Daddy!’ That old man’s face turned fifteen shades of purple, and he jerked the picture out of Robb’s hands and shoved it at Mom. He started raving about how pictures like that would confuse Robb and it was a disgrace that she’d ever posed for such a picture anyway and that she should be down on her knees thanking God that a good man was willing to raise her bastard child as his own rather than flaunting the behavior that got her into that trouble in the first place in front of innocent children.”

“Grandpa said all that?” Rickon said, incredulously. His grandfather was an exceedingly frail old man who didn’t do much but sit around and tell the same stories over and over, but he’d never said anything hateful that Rickon could remember.

“Yeah. He’s mellowed a bit since then. We didn’t even understand all of what he said at the time—Robb and me. But we understood that it hurt Mom. And since it had to do with the picture of her and Brandon Stark, Robb kind of figured he was responsible for it. Mom started to tell Hoster off, but he got up and practically stood over top of her and said, ‘You will not speak to me like that in my own house, child, and at least in my presence, you will not flaunt your own shame to your children!’ I remember that exactly because oddly enough, I think it’s the only time he ever referred to me as one of Mom’s children which ordinarily would have thrilled me. Mom grabbed me and Robb by the hands and started out of the dining room, but Robb got loose from her and ran back. I will never forget as long as I live what he did. He stood there, staring up at old Hoster and shouted at the top of his lungs, ‘If you ever make my mommy sad again, I will knock you down and make blood come out your nose!’”

“Did he get in trouble?” Rickon asked, thinking back on his own fights when he was a little kid.

Jon shook his head. “Mom made him apologize the next day, but that’s it. We left the next day, too. We were supposed to stay until Dad got back, but Mom was done. She wanted to come home.”

“Did she and Grandpa make up?”

Jon paused. “More or less. Dad talked to us about it a little then, and then more as we got older. Seems that Grandpa Hoster had a really difficult time of accepting that Mom got pregnant with Robb before she and Uncle Brandon got married. He said they quit talking completely for awhile, but they managed to mostly forgive each other over time because family mattered. And you know how much Grandpa Hoster loves Robb. So, mostly things were okay after that. Only Robb never forgot it. And then my Uncle Arthur was a pretty big asshole in those days, and for whatever reason, he was meaner to Mom than to just about anybody when all she ever did was love me. And in the early years of school, we thought it was normal to have extra moms or dads in heaven. We didn’t know any better, so we talked about it to other kids. Especially Robb. Like I said, he could be oblivious. I had Uncle Arthur confusing the hell out of me from day one so I was a bit more reluctant to talk than Robb was. And when kids would come back to school spouting shitty things about Mom having a kid without a husband—stuff they’d obviously heard from their parents--Robb would knock them down. Just like he’d threatened to do to Hoster.”

“Wow. I never knew any of that.”

Jon laughed. “Of course not! Mom and Dad may drive you crazy Rickon with some of their rules and expectations, but they don’t tell anyone your business. They don’t tell anybody stuff about themselves or any of us unless a person asks and has a real reason to know. So, I only know about the stuff that you get into that Bran or the girls tell me about. Or that you tell me. Maybe that’s why it seems to you like we’re all keeping secrets. Mom and Dad just believe in privacy, that’s all. And given all the shit that went down in this family over twenty years ago, I guess I can’t blame them.”

Rickon nodded slowly. “So does Robb hate his other father?”

Jon frowned. “No. It’s . . . complicated, Rickon. And one of those things where I’d have to say Robb’s right to privacy is more important than your curiosity or concern. But . . . even though we’re both adopted by one of our parents, it isn’t exactly the same for me and Robb. I have the Daynes, and they couldn’t care less about my family here. Which sucks in a lot of ways, but it also means they try to keep my birth mother’s memory alive in my mind without worrying about how it affects anybody else. With Robb, well, Uncle Brandon is family to all of us, and we’re all taught to remember him as Uncle Brandon. And while Mom did love him and would have married him if he hadn’t been killed, she’s loved Dad for so long now, I think it’s hard for her to even imagine loving anybody else. Same with Dad, but I have the Daynes reminding me of her even when he isn’t. Robb just has everybody here being taught to remember Uncle Brandon. And I think sometimes it’s easier for him to just think of him as Uncle Brandon, too. Because Dad’s his dad, and he’s good with that. Then Mom reminds him that his birth father matters, too, and . . . it’s just hard sometimes. That’s all.”

Rickon wasn’t certain he understood all of that. He did know that Jon’s and Robb’s earlier conversation was important in this, too, but Jon obviously wasn’t going to share any of that. Mostly, this conversation made him exceedingly glad that he only had two parents—alive or dead. “I just don’t want Robb to be unhappy.”

“He won’t be, little brother,” Jon said, running a hand through Rickon’s curls which oddly didn’t piss him off the way it normally did when someone did that. “Robb’s an essentially happy person. He’ll be fine.”

“Good.” 

The rest of the day leading up to Christmas Eve dinner was marked by various arrivals. Gendry showed up first, and he and Arya pretty much took over the game room, shooting at each other on the Xbox and occasionally groping each other in real life. That was more than Rickon wanted to see so he left them alone there which probably made them perfectly happy. Uncle Benjen showed up next, but he hadn’t brought his roommate Mark along. Apparently, Mark was doing Christmas with his family this year, and his family didn’t have the same open invitation policy the Starks did. Rickon grinned especially big when he saw the present Uncle Ben put under the tree with his name on it was shaped rather obviously like a catcher’s mitt. It was tough being the only die hard baseball fan in a family full of hockey nuts, and Uncle Benjen was his one relative who loved baseball as much as Rickon. 

Arya emerged from the game room when Ned Dayne arrived, immediately grabbing him to go show him a new video by a band they both liked, pissing off both Sansa and Gendry in the process. Rickon thought it was hilarious. He knew very well that she had no designs on Ned. His sister just couldn’t resist stirring up trouble sometimes. She liked making people react. Anyway, she returned to Gendry immediately after the video viewing, and Ned gave all of his attention to Sansa—he really was about a million times better than any of her previous boyfriends—so all was well. 

Finally, at five-thirty, well past the anticipated time, Margaery Tyrell arrived. Rickon had to admit she really was pretty. Much prettier than any of Robb’s previous girlfriends. She was really confident—smiled at everybody and spoke to Mom and Dad much more easily than Gendry or Ned. Of course, given that Mom and Dad were just barely learning not to hate Gendry and that Ned had been taught for years by Jon’s stupid uncle that Mom and Dad were the worst people ever, Rickon supposed that wasn’t a fair comparison.

She really got along well with Sansa which wasn’t too surprising as they seemed similar in a lot of ways, and apparently they’d become fast friends at that Riverrun weekend he missed over the summer. Sansa was prettier. That wasn’t just because she was his sister, either. Marg was a very pretty girl, but Rickon hadn’t seen many girls at all that were prettier than his older sister, and all of those were on TV or movies rather than in real life. Arya was pretty, too, but in just a normal kind of way, and Rickon thought it must kind of suck sometimes being Sansa’s sister. 

Mom got dinner on the table by six-thirty. It was delicious, but Rickon kind of missed the old days of everybody making pizza in the kitchen. It honestly had gotten a bit too crowded for that as more and more Starks started inviting guests, and when Grandpa Hoster decided the big formal dinner at Riverrun on Christmas Day was just too much for him three years ago, Mom had begun cooking the big dinner here on Christmas Eve. They still went to Riverrun on Christmas Day, but no big dinner—just snack foods really, and of course ice skating with Uncle Edmure and whomever he was dating and maybe his cousin Robert if Aunt Lysa would let him out. They were only staying two nights. Truthfully, Riverrun wasn’t nearly as much fun in the winter as in the summer, but Rickon figured they’d have to go every Christmas as long as Grandpa Hoster was alive. Jon wasn’t going to Riverrun this Christmas. He was going with Ned Dayne and his parents up to his Uncle Arthur and Aunt Elia’s house on Christmas Day because he’d come to Winterfell for Thanksgiving. Ned had asked Sansa to come with him, but she had said no. Things were better between the Starks and the Daynes, but his sister really didn’t want to spend Christmas with a bunch of them even if Ned and Jon were both there. Rickon didn’t blame her.

Robb was hilarious all through dinner. He was either gazing at Margaery adoringly or looking like he was about to take the hardest exam of his life. Nobody said anything, though, and if Margaery suspected anything, she was an awfully good actress because she didn’t look nervous at all. After everyone was so stuffed on Mom’s cooking they could hardly move, she brought out Sansa’s lemon birthday cake with twenty candles on top. Everybody sang, and Margaery gushed about how special it must be to have a birthday on Christmas Eve, and Sansa said it actually wasn’t that great, but at least her family never forgot it and no one was allowed to give her “combo” gifts unless she actually asked for them.

That led into tales of the early morning birthday song wake-ups which had the guests laughing hysterically, and Rickon learned for the first time that Dad had actually started all that in his campaign to keep Sansa’s birthday from being swallowed up by Christmas. As Mom told them that, Rickon couldn’t help but find it hysterical that the birthday tradition that most irritated his older sister was her own stupid fault for being born on Christmas Eve!

Everybody had given Sansa her presents at her birthday party earlier in the week, but of course she had her one special birthday present to open today from Mom and Dad, and it was a coat. Her presents were almost always clothes, and she always went absolutely nuts over them, and this time she had Margaery there to go nuts with her. Rickon nearly choked on his drink when he saw Arya silently mimicking the other girls in their coat adoration for Gendry’s amusement. He was really glad neither Mom nor Sansa saw her though.

Then Ned Dayne surprised everybody by whipping out a little wrapped box and explaining that Sansa had to open this one now, too, because it was her birthday present, not her Christmas present. It was a necklace with a big silver snowflake charm and Sansa and Margaery gushed some more. Rickon rolled his eyes and caught his mother giving him ‘the look’ which seemed hardly fair. How had the woman missed Arya’s evil impressions?

Dad was fixing drinks for everyone as they moved into the parlor for Christmas Eve presents. Rickon laughed when he only offered Gendry soft drinks even though Gendry was twenty-one. Apparently, if you’re at Winterfell as Ned Stark’s seventeen year old daughter’s date, you must play by the teen age rules. To Gendry’s credit, he didn’t object.

When it came time for the traditional Christmas Eve presents, Rickon was thrilled with his Xbox One. They’d been selling out so fast, he’d been afraid his parents wouldn’t find one. He scarcely paid attention to most of the other gifts as he got it out of the box and began reading everything about it, wishing he could escape to the game room and get it hooked up to play one of the games that came with it. Dead Rising 3 looked pretty cool.

He looked up however, when he heard his mother squeal in a manner that sounded a lot more like Sansa or Margaery. She was sitting beside his father holding up what looked like a necklace and she was biting her lip the way she did when she didn’t know what to say.

“Ned . . . it’s . . . it’s beautiful,” she finally stammered.

“Like you,” his father replied without hesitation.

“Oh, it’s wonderful, my love, but you shouldn’t have. You . . .”

“I absolutely should have. I haven’t gotten you real jewelry in a very long time, Cat. Here let me put it on you.”

“It hardly goes with a sweater and jeans,” his mother laughed, but she held up her hair and turned her back to her father all the same.

Once he had it latched around her neck and she turned to show all of them, more squealing ensued—this time from Sansa, Margaery, and even Arya. Rickon had to admit the necklace was impressive. It was a pendant with a diamond—one about twice the size of the one in Mom’s ring—surrounded by a bunch of littler different stones.

“What are the little ones?” he asked, leaning forward to get a better look at the necklace. He noticed pretty much everyone was leaning or even moving toward Mom now so he wasn’t alone in his interest.

She smiled and said without hesitation, “Pearl, emerald, turquoise, peridot, amethyst, and opal,” as if that meant anything to him. Then she laughed. “They’re your birthstones, Rickon. All of you children. You’re the opal.”

“Is yours the diamond?” he asked. 

She smiled even more brightly. “Diamond is the stone for April.” Then she turned toward his father. “The month we got married.”

“Best decision I ever made,” his father said. Then he kissed Mom, and Rickon groaned as it looked to be one of their embarrassing kisses.

“Your parents are wonderful,” Margaery whispered to Robb loud enough for everyone to hear.

“That’s one word for it,” Rickon muttered, and Mom and Dad broke their lip-lock to laugh. 

“Will you look at me like that when we’re their age?” Margaery asked, leaning into Robb. She said that pretty quiet, but Rickon happened to be sitting right beside them.

“Every day of my life,” Robb answered, and Rickon struggled to refrain from making gagging noises. 

Then when Robb took Margaery by the hand and led her out of the parlor, he made himself stay put and keep his promise. He noticed both Bran and Arya looking after them, but neither moved. 

“Why don’t you kids all open your presents from Benjen since he won’t be with us tomorrow?” Mom said brightly in an obvious diversion tactic. It was fine with Rickon, though. He wanted to check out his new catcher’s mitt.

Everyone opened their gifts from their uncle, and he got his presents from them. Arya and Gendry, and Ned and Sansa exchanged Christmas gifts as well. Everyone was sitting around talking and laughing when Robb cleared his throat in the doorway. Rickon looked up to see him standing there with his arm around Margaery. She had tears on her face and she was wearing the ring Mom had given Robb.

“Everybody,” Robb said in a voice that shook a little. “I’m pleased to tell you all that the beautiful Margaery Tyrell has just consented to be my wife.”

“Woo hoo!” Bran shouted. The girls squealed and ran to Margaery, Jon walked over at a more reasonable pace to offer his congratulations, and Mom and Dad just sat there looking at Robb and at each other. Poor Gendry and Ned looked confused, and even Uncle Benjen looked a bit dumbfounded. 

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said after a moment. “Congratulations, Robb! You’ve got yourself a fine girl. And Margaery, Robb’s a hell of a young man.”

Robb beamed at his uncle’s words and general good wishes and hugs and oohs and ahs over the ring ensued. 

When Rickon finally got to speak to his brother, he just said, “You look happy, Robb.”

“I am happy, Rickon. I’m really, really happy.”

After a bit more general revelry, Ned announced he had to leave. Jon made arrangements to meet up with him and his folks after he picked up Ygritte in the morning who at least didn’t have to work Christmas Day. Rickon liked Jon’s girlfriend and was bummed she didn’t get to come tonight. 

Once Sansa returned from the entryway which indicated that Ned had gone, Dad began looking rather pointedly at Gendry. He got the hint and began telling people goodbye as well. He even shook Dad’s hand and thanked him for having him over and told Mom how wonderful everything had been. He did look a bit stunned when Mom actually hugged him goodbye. Then Arya dragged him off to tell him goodbye somewhere privately.

“Mom,” Robb said rather hesitantly as Arya and Gendry left the parlor, “I know you like us all to be at Grandpa Hoster’s on Christmas Day, but . . .”

“But you want to go with Margaery,” Mom finished for him.

Robb nodded. 

“Well, it’s hardly courteous to have the poor girl announce to her family that she’s engaged without her fiancé, now is it?” Mom said, smiling at him.

“So, you don’t mind?”

“Robb, I miss every one of you when you aren’t right here with me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to go live your lives! Of course, I want you to go. Do you think you can get a plane ticket?”

“Oh!” Margaery said, coming up beside Robb. “It’s Daddy’s corporate plane, Mrs. Stark. There’s plenty of room for Robb, and he can use it to fly back as quickly as he needs to.”

“Well,” Dad said, looking at Mom. “I suppose that’s not a problem then. But Robb can book an airline flight to come home, Margaery. I insist. No need to tie up your father’s plane on his account when there is excellent service between here and Highgarden.”

“But . . .” she started.

“That’ll be fine, Dad,” Robb said, putting a hand on his girlfriend’s arm. “You all will be in Riverrun until the twenty-seventh, right? How about I come back a day or two after that?”

“How about we both come back then?” Margaery asked. “I’ve only gotten this one evening with your family, and that hardly seems fair. We can spend a few days with my family and come back here before New Year’s. I don’t have to be back at school until the second week of January.”

“I think that sounds lovely,” Mom said. “We generally stay in and have a few people over on New Year’s Eve. You are welcome to stay here as our guest, Margaery. You are going to be family, after all.”

Robb looked a little overwhelmed, and Rickon watched Dad put a hand on his arm. “Get used to it, son. Just show up when you’re told.”

“Ha. Ha,” Mom said. “Pay him no mind, Margaery. He thinks he’s funny.”

“Not really,” Dad said. “Comedy isn’t exactly my strong suit.”

“You can say that again,” Bran chimed in, and everyone laughed.

“Well, apparently picking out jewelry is your strong suit, Mr. Stark. That pendant is exquisite. It’s absolutely breathtaking,” Margaery gushed.

“Thank you,” Mom and Dad said together and then laughed.

“And this ring!” She held up her left hand with the diamond in a delicate silver band. “It’s white gold, isn’t it?” she said. White gold? Was there such a thing? It looked silver to Rickon.

“Yes,” Mother whispered. “He always bought white gold.”

“Well, I love it. I honestly can’t believe you parted with it.” She had been staring at her finger, but now she looked up at Dad. “Honestly, Mr. Stark, I hope Robb has inherited your taste in jewelry. That pendant, Mrs. Stark’s new ring, this ring . . . they’re all perfect, and I commend you on them.”

Rickon slowly realized what Margaery was saying and he watched his parents’ faces change as they realized it, too. His dad looked toward his brother.

“Robb?” he said simply, and Rickon looked to see that his brother’s face had gone the color of ash.

“I . . . I just told her it was Mother’s engagement ring. Her original engagement ring,” he said sort of faintly. 

“Isn’t it?” Margaery asked, looking confused herself now.

“Yes,” Mom said. “Yes, it is.” She bit her lip for a moment. “Ned, take our son to the sofa. I believe he needs to sit down.” Rickon watched as his father took Robb’s arm and led him to the big couch. “Margaery, dear,” Mom said. “I’m afraid our family is a bit more complicated than you know, but our son Robb is a good man who loves you very much. I’m going to ask something of you now that is selfish in the extreme, but I think Ned and I need to speak to our son alone. If you wouldn’t mind waiting in the guest room, Robb will explain it all to you.”

Margaery Tyrell looked completely at a loss for the first time since Rickon had met her. “Robb?” she said uncertainly, looking toward him.

Robb looked miserable. “I should have told you, Marg. Dad . . . Dad isn’t my dad. I mean he is, but . . .I know I should have told you, but it just never came up, and I’m sorry about the ring, and I was going to explain it, but . . .”

She looked at him for a moment. “I’m going to my room, Robb. You talk to your parents and then come talk to me. Okay?”

He nodded. “I will. I promise. I love you, Marg.”

“I love you, too,” she said. Then she turned back toward Mom. “I’m not certain I remember the way to the guest room, Mrs. Stark. It’s a big house and I was only in the room for a moment.”

“I’ll take you,” Uncle Benjen said quickly, and he took Margaery’s arm and led her from the parlor.

“That’s good. He’ll stay with her,” Mom said. “Kids, clear out. Your father, brother, and I need to have a talk.”

“No,” Rickon said.

“Excuse me?” his mother asked.

“I said no.” Rickon knew he was within fifteen seconds of being grounded for a month, but he pushed on. “It isn’t just Robb, Mom. I mean, yeah, he should have told Margaery about Uncle Brandon, but he doesn’t really know Uncle Brandon, does he? I mean, none of us do.”

“Rickon, you are out of order, young man. You will apologize to your mother immediately, and then leave this room,” his father ordered.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I really am. But . . . but I can’t go without asking some questions of my own. Did you know I never knew Dad only asked you to get married because you were pregnant until today? I mean I knew about you and Uncle Brandon, and about Dad and Ashara Dayne, but I didn’t really know anything about it.”

“It really doesn’t concern you, Rickon,” his father said.

“Yes! Yes it does because it concerns Robb and Jon, and they’re my brothers. And it concerns you, and you’re my parents.”

“Hear, hear,” said Arya, coming back in through the parlor door with her lips considerably puffier than when she left. “He’s making sense.”

Everyone stared at her. “I just saw Uncle Benjen and Margaery in the hall.” She turned toward Robb. “You just asked a girl to marry you with Mom’s old engagement ring and never even told her Dad isn’t your birth father? What were you thinking, Robb?”

“I . . . I wasn’t thinking. I just . . . why can’t he just be my Uncle Brandon, too? I have a father!”

“Oh, Robb!” Mom said, putting her hand over her mouth and sinking down into a chair. 

“I am your father, Robb, and proud to be your father,” Dad said, “but that doesn’t mean you need to erase Brandon. He was my brother, and I can see him in you. I can . . .”

“No!” Robb nearly yelled. “I don’t want to be like Brandon Stark. I want to be like you! Why is that so terrible? Why is it so wrong?”

Mom got up from her chair now and walked over to sit on the couch by Robb who was now seated between their parents. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be like Ned Stark, Robb,” she said, her voice sounding a bit rougher than usual. “He is your father and has been for more than twenty-two years, and he is the most wonderful man I’ve ever known. But Brandon is a part of you, and I don’t want you to be ashamed of that. I am not ashamed, and I don’t want . . .”

“You have nothing to be ashamed of!” Robb interrupted her so forcefully that she jumped a bit. “You should never be ashamed, Mom. Never.”

“What is all this, Robb? Where is it coming from?” his father asked.

Rickon looked around the room. Sansa and Bran looked sort of shell-shocked. Neither moved or spoke. Jon looked thoughtful and even a little guilty, but he didn’t say anything. Arya chewed on her lip a lot like Mother, but she wasn’t speaking up either.

“Maybe he’s upset about Uncle Brandon and Jon’s mother!” Rickon blurted out. “Maybe somebody ought to find out if Ned Dayne’s full of crap or not.”

“Rickon!” Sansa yelled just as Bran said, “What does Ned have to do with any of this?” and Mom whispered, “Oh my god!” and put her face in both of her hands.

Robb and Jon stayed stubbornly silent, and Dad finally said wearily, “What have you heard, Rickon?”

Rickon was getting really tired of the older kids leaving him out here on his own. “Ask Robb. Or Jon. Or Arya. They all know.”

“How do you know anything about it, Rickon?” Jon asked then.

“He heard you,” Arya said. 

“You were listening to us?” Robb asked. “You little shit! How dare you . . .”

“Yeah, I listened to your conversation, Robb. So sue me. Not one of us is perfect all the time. I mean even Mom and Dad had sex with people they weren’t married to and that’s why you and Jon are even here!”

“Rickon!” said several people all at once in shocked voices. Rickon was pretty convinced he had gone too far and was going to die when he realized none of those voices were his parents’.

“Well, that’s a pretty fair statement, Rickon, but it doesn’t make eavesdropping okay,” his father said in a remarkably calm voice. “Robb, Jon, would you care to tell us what your little brother heard or shall we continue to play stupid games of which child has the most right to be angry with which other child?”

“Brandon Stark cheated on you, Mom,” Robb said miserably. “He screwed around with Ashara Dayne and a bunch of other people, too, if Jon’s uncle is right.”

“God damn Arthur Dayne to hell,” Dad muttered.

“Ned!” Mom admonished, but she sounded sad and defeated.

“Elia Dayne says it, too,” Arya put in. “About Jon’s mom anyway. Ned asked her about it when I told him it was just his uncle making up nasty shit about Starks.”

“Why do you all keep dragging Ned into this?” Sansa asked.

“Because he is in it, Sansa,” Jon said. “You have no idea what Ned’s listened to over the years from my Uncle Arthur. Arthur’s not nearly as angry as he used to be, thanks to Elia, but it’s hard to just forget everything you’ve ever heard. He’s known Arya a long time, and between my telling him that my family wasn’t Satan’s spawn and then Arya becoming his friend, well, he started to doubt the truthfulness of what our uncle said. But not everything Uncle Arthur said was a lie. I’ve been trying to sort this stuff out since I was little and for the past few years Ned’s told everything he hears to Arya or me, and I pretty much tell all of it to Robb. Most of it’s crap, but some stuff . . .” Jon shook his head.

“Why doesn’t Ned tell me any of this?” Sansa asked, looking hurt.

“Because he thinks you hung the moon,” Arya said bluntly. “Because he knows things are hard enough with how are families are and he doesn’t want to hurt you or want you to dump him.”

“But I don’t want to dump Ned!” Sansa protested. “He should trust me.”

“He wants to protect you, Sansa,” Mom said quietly. “Only protecting people from the truth doesn’t seem to work out very well.” She sighed. “Boys,” she continued, addressing Robb and Jon, “If you wanted to know the truth about my relationship with Brandon, why didn’t you just ask me?”

“We weren’t sure you knew,” Robb said. “I hated that he treated you like that. You deserve only the best, Mom, and you loved him. We didn’t want to hurt you or mess that up.”

“Oh, Ned, what the hell have we done to our poor babies in the name of protecting them?” She shook her head. “Of course, I knew about Brandon’s cheating. Do you think I’m stupid? No, don’t answer that because I’ve certainly been stupid in how I’ve handled things with you, Robb.”

“So my birth father was a lying, cheating piece of crap?” Robb asked her.

“No,” she said firmly. “And I’ll not have you say that again. Brandon Stark was the man I loved from the time I was eighteen until he died when I was almost twenty-three. I knew him well, and I don’t regret loving him even though there were times he hurt me.”

“But . . .” Robb started.

“No, Robb. You’ve heard Arthur Dayne’s version of events and it seems Elia Martell chimed in as well, so how about you listen to the woman who actually lived through it?”

“Cat, you don’t have to . . .”

“Yes, Ned, I do. I won’t have them thinking worse of Brandon than he deserves. We were stupid to make him better than he was for our son, but I’ll not allow him to be made a villain. Brandon had his flaws, but he was never a cruel man—only a selfish one sometimes. You see, Robb, Brandon liked women. He liked them a lot.”

Rickon watched his brother’s face fall and remembered him comparing himself to Theon earlier when he’d spoken with Jon.

“And they liked him,” Dad put in. “From the time he was in his early teens, there wasn’t a girl who’d say no to him. Until he met your mother.”

“I thought you fell for him right away,” Robb said.

“Oh, I did,” Mom assured him. “What your father means is that I wouldn’t sleep with him. Something Brandon Stark was not used to, I’m afraid.” She smiled at the recollection. “The entire first year we dated, he openly dated other girls and flat out told me that he thought he was falling in love with me, but couldn’t be in an exclusive relationship with me because he had needs.” She shook her head. “I told him I wasn’t putting up with that bullshit any longer and stopped going out with him.”

Surprisingly, Dad laughed. “He came to me to complain about it. He was a mess when she wouldn’t take his calls or see him if he showed up at her dorm. I knew your mother by then because she needed a calculus tutor, and Brandon knew I tutored math and business courses, so he’d hooked her up with me.”

“Your father was amazingly non-partisan during all of our fights and break-ups,” Mom laughed.

“Yeah. I was Switzerland. It wasn’t easy, though because I could see how miserable both of them were without each other, and I totally agreed with Cat that Brandon was being an asshole about the whole ‘sexual needs’ things. Either he wanted her enough to be with her on her terms or he didn’t. Finally, he decided he did. And he quit dating anyone on campus at all until she took him back.”

“And we were happy. Brandon really did have a generous spirit, Robb. He was fun and charming, and he honestly cared about making me happy. He was that way with his brothers and sister, too. And his friends. When we were together, it was wonderful, and I thought his cheating was behind him.”

“So is that when you gave in and slept with him?” Arya asked.

“Arya Minisa Stark, I will say this one time and one time only. My sex life is none of your business. Obviously, I had sex with Brandon. Robb’s sitting right there. But the precise moment our relationship became sexual isn’t even any of his business, much less yours.”

Mother said all of that without batting an eye, but Rickon felt very uncomfortable. The idea of his mother having sex with anyone—even Dad—made him feel slightly queasy. At least, she wasn’t going to say any more about it.

“Anyway, we were happy together until I found out about his hometown girl.”

“Hometown girl?” Jon asked.

“Barbrey Ryswell,” Dad said. “Her family lived not far from here. They’re all gone now. I think she ended up marrying one of the Dustin boys. She and Brandon were a thing in high school. He broke up with her when he left for college, but that didn’t keep the two of them from hooking up when he came home over weekends or on breaks.”

“You knew about it?” Jon asked, obviously incensed that his father would allow anyone to do that to Mom.

“Yes, but I thought it stopped after that first break-up. I was almost never home so . . . Brandon could keep it from me pretty easily. And after I’d been so adamant about his not cheating on Cat once they got back together, he quit confiding in me.”

“Asshole,” Robb muttered.

“Yes,” Mom said. “At that point in time, he was most definitely an asshole. I found out, of course. The stupid girl left an x-rated message on the answering machine in his apartment, and Brandon had asked me to check his messages while he was gone on a fraternity retreat of some sort because he was waiting on word from an internship he wanted. I confronted him when he got back and he confessed everything. He begged me not to break up with him. He promised it was over with Barbrey, and I believed him. I still do. She called him for awhile after that leaving desperate messages, angry messages—honestly some of them sounded almost unhinged. He never erased them until I heard them because he was trying to be completely open with me. He pretty much told me where he was 24 hours a day until I finally told him he wasn’t on probation and could lighten up a little. Things were really good after that. I think we both grew up quite a bit and we figured out what it meant to love someone. He asked me to marry him, but I said no. I still didn’t trust him completely. He was trying, though, Robb. He was doing everything he could to earn my trust. And for the first time in our relationship, I was honestly certain that he loved me.”

“You haven’t mentioned my mother,” Jon said when Mom paused.

“No,” she said softly. “I don’t want to hurt you, Jon, any more than I wanted to hurt Robb. Your mother wasn’t a terrible person. Your father never would have loved her if she was. And she was no more to blame than Brandon in what happened between them, but I . . . I couldn’t quite forgive her even after I forgave Brandon. Honestly, I don’t think I forgave her until I fell in love with you. When I realized that I got to be your mother forever, and she was missing all of it. I couldn’t be angry with her any more after that.”

“You always told me she loved me,” Jon said.

“She did. When Sansa was born, your father told me about watching her nurse you, and how much love he felt watching how much she loved you. And at the time, it hurt a bit because I was selfish where your father was concerned.”

“Cat . . .” Dad started.

“Hush, Ned,” she said with a small smile, reaching over Robb to touch Dad’s hand. “I got over that quickly enough if you recall the rest of our conversation that day.” Dad smiled back, and Rickon found himself wondering what they’d talked about, but Mom turned back to Jon. “Later, as you grew, I was glad you’d had that moment with her. I loved nursing all my babies, and I couldn’t stand the thought that you never got to experience that, so I was glad you did—even if it was only one day. I truly have nothing but gratitude toward your mother now, Jon. Please believe that.”

“You are my mother,” Jon said softly. “But I am glad you don’t hate her, Mom.”

“I don’t. I haven’t for a long time. But, she and Brandon did have a . . . thing. I’m not even sure what to call it. Brandon was under a lot of stress. Your grandfather was pressuring him about coming into the business and he was having serious second thoughts about doing that. Lyanna had started acting very strangely—evasive and secretive. She’d started her . . . involvement with a teacher at school, but we didn’t know that then. And Brandon was worried sick about her. He met Ashara at a bar. He went home with her that night. To be fair, I don’t think she had the slightest inkling he had a girlfriend. Not then.”

“She didn’t,” Dad continued. “Brandon had been drunk. Very drunk. He was trying to figure out how to tell Dad he wanted no part of Stark Capital. And none of us could find Lyanna. We hadn’t heard from her in over a day. She was just a kid, even if she was always convinced she knew what she was doing.” Dad looked meaningfully at Arya. “He called me the next day, crying that he’d messed up. That Cat would never forgive him, that he’d die if he lost her. I told him he had to tell her. And he did.”

“He confessed right away,” Mom continued. “He was a mess. I told him I’d forgive him, but that this had to be the last time. I couldn’t keep doing it.” She looked down. “Two weeks later, she called him to go out. He told Ned later that he didn’t even remember giving her his number, but he went. He told her he had a girlfriend, that they couldn’t have any kind of relationship. And he slept with her. I don’t know why. I don’t think he knew why, other than the fact that she was probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.” 

“He didn’t love her,” Dad continued. “I know that much. Brandon appreciated all kinds of women. But he only ever loved one. And that was Catelyn.”

“But he kept on cheating,” Robb protested. 

“Yes,” Mom admitted. “Until I caught him with Ashara Dayne. He continued to see her, on occasion, for a little over a month. They probably weren’t together more than a handful of times, but it didn’t matter. I walked into his apartment—I had a key, you see—and I found them there. Together. I was finished. I broke up with Brandon and told him never to contact me again. He didn’t, for almost three months. Then Ned called me. Brandon had given up his apartment and moved in with him. He was in counseling. He quit drinking. He’d talked to Rickard about wanting to go to medical school instead of joining the family business. He was doing everything right, but Ned said he was miserable.”

“He was miserable because he’d lost Cat,” his father said then. “He finally realized what his behavior had cost him, and he was a broken man. He wanted to go see her, but he didn’t believe he deserved her. So, I asked her if she still had feelings for him. And I got the two of them together to talk.”

“We talked." Their mother picked up the tale. "I let him back in to my life. Whether I should have done that, whether he deserved it . . . I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I loved him. And I knew he loved me. And he never did cheat on me again, Robb. Not once. I finally accepted his proposal, and he put that white gold ring on my finger—the one you gave Margaery tonight. I was proud to wear it, Robb. After all we’d been through, we had come to the other side.”

“You mean all he put you through, don’t you?” Robb said rather bitterly.

“I suppose you could say that. But he put himself through it, too, you see. He hurt himself as much as he ever hurt me. And he loved me more than he loved himself. I do know that.”

“I don’t think I could ever forgive someone for that,” Sansa said softly.

“I hope you never have to,” Mom said. “I hope none of you ever have to. Maybe my life would have been less painful had I met Ned instead of Brandon that first week of college. But had that happened, we wouldn’t have Robb or Jon, and I’d not give either of them up to spare myself any amount of pain. I do believe things happen for a reason, and our family is exactly what it’s supposed to be. As for your birth father, Robb, he was not a paragon of virtue. He was a man—as fallible as any other man. Or woman. And I loved him. I should not have tried to make him perfect for you. But neither should you think of him as simply the man who cheated on me. Instead, I’d have you think of him as the man who loved me—and who never stopped working to make himself a better man for me, for our future, for his family, right up until he died.”

Rickon watched as his brother nodded slowly. Then he hugged Mom tightly. “I love you, Mom,” he said. 

Nobody in the room said anything as the two of them held onto each other. Finally Robb turned and hugged Dad as well, and then stood up. “I need to talk to Margaery.”

Mom nodded, and Robb left the room without another word.

Rickon looked around. Sansa and Bran looked kind of thoughtful. Mom and Dad had moved close together on the couch after Robb left. Jon stood off to one side of the room. He looked kind of pale.

“So, do any of you have any more questions for us? It seems tonight is about bringing up things long buried,” Dad said. 

“I . . . when Brandon was with . . . my mother,” Jon started. “When was that exactly? I mean . . .”

“You’re my son, Jon,” Dad said definitively. “I didn’t even meet Ashara until nearly six months after she and Brandon were together. You couldn’t possibly be his.”

“But didn’t Mom say Aunt Lyanna was starting up with Rhaegar Targaryen when . . .”

“No,” Mom and Dad said together.

Then Dad sighed. “My sister was seduced at the age of fourteen by a teacher at her school. That man wasn’t Rhaegar Targaryen, but I blame him for her willingness to become involved with him. Lyanna never wanted to see herself as a victim. But she was one. Twice.”

“Fourteen?” Arya choked out.

“Fourteen,” Dad said grimly, and Rickon suddenly saw his extreme disapproval of Arya’s relationship with Gendry in a new light.

“But how could you even be with her?” Jon burst out suddenly. “Knowing what she . . . how could you do that to Mom?” 

“Well,” Dad said, “For starters, I wasn’t married to Catelyn at the time, Jon. In fact, she was engaged to my brother.”

“But . . . you knew! You knew what she’d done!”

“I knew what she and Brandon had done. Catelyn had forgiven Brandon and so I did, too. It would be rather hypocritical of me to bear a grudge against Ashara, would it not? Particularly since I hadn’t known her at all then. I admit that when I realized who she was, I nearly turned around and left. But . . . she was intriguing, your mother. She was beautiful, yes, but more than that—she was funny. Irreverent. She had a way of accepting people precisely as they are and not asking for more than they offered. She was probably the least judgmental person I ever met, and she honestly never sought to harm anyone. She just didn’t look very far beyond whatever moment she was living, I’m afraid, and that caused her to fail to see potential consequences of her actions. She and I came together when I was sorely in need of a little ‘living in the moment,’ and while her past with Brandon was something I wished didn’t exist, she was like a breath of fresh air in my world. And I couldn’t help but want to breathe it in. Later, when she was pregnant with you and she had become such a big part of my life, she began to see precisely how much pain her affair with Brandon had caused. And she regretted it sincerely. Sometimes I think her persistent refusals to marry me had as much to do with her realizing her presence in the family would be difficult as much as her general disinclination to marriage in general.”

“You told me you loved her.” Now Rickon thought Jon sounded almost as young as Robb had when he’d been asking why Dad couldn’t just be his only father.

“I did. I never loved her the same way I love Cat. I don’t think it’s possible to love two different people in the exact same way. I've told you that before. And I can’t truthfully say I was in love with her the way Catelyn was with Brandon. She and I were . . . drawn to each other. We intentionally kept it light because neither of us wanted anything more. And then we found out about you. And I can honestly say that I loved Ashara more through every month of that pregnancy even as she refused my proposals and called me hopelessly old fashioned and threatened to name you all manner of ridiculous made up things. She was a force of nature, Jon. And on the day you were born, I honestly believe the two of us loved each other better than we had ever known how to love before that day.”

His father’s voice had been as steady and even as it always was, but Rickon didn’t miss how tightly he held Mom’s hand as he spoke. It seemed strange that they should both cling so much to each other as they talked about loving other people. Maybe, being grown up wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. A lot of the stuff they’d said sounded complicated and didn’t even make a lot of sense as far as Rickon was concerned. He thought maybe not falling in love at all, ever, might be the best option. Being twelve felt pretty good. He could deal with stupid social studies and science tests if he got to spend most of the rest of his time playing baseball or football or Xbox. He was so busy thinking about how life in middle school really didn’t suck that badly that he almost missed Arya’s question. She spoke a lot more softly than she usually did.

“What really happened to Aunt Lyanna?”

“She died in a car accident,” Dad said. “You know that. She was in a car with Rhaegar Targaryen, and they were both killed. His father blamed our entire family for his son’s death and murdered my father and brother. You know the story, Arya.”

“Yeah. I know that story. But I don’t know what happened to her before she died. I never knew about the thing with her teacher until tonight. How did she get hooked up with Rhaegar Targaryen anyway? Where did they meet? Why are you so afraid that I’m going to turn out just like her?”

“Oh, Arya,” Dad said. “I’m not at all afraid of you ‘turning out’ like my sister. You have too much of your mother’s common sense for one thing. And you have more regard for your family—even if you have no regard at all for family rules.” He looked at her Arya closely. “You do look a lot like her, you know. And you have her fearlessness, her impulsiveness, her stubbornness. Although that last could be your mother as well.” Mom elbowed him then, and Rickon allowed himself to smile even though he was anxious for Dad to quit talking about Arya and start telling them about Lyanna.

“I worry about you, Arya, because if someone tells you that you can’t do something, you will risk life and limb to prove that you can. And you love with all your heart. Lyanna was the same. She gave her whole heart to the wrong people, and she hurt badly for it. I don’t want want to see you ever hurt like that.”

“Gendry isn’t Rhaegar Targaryen, Dad.”

“No, he isn’t. Any more than you are Lyanna. But he is a grown man, Arya, and however vehemently you may disagree with your mother and me, you are not a grown woman. Gendry loves you, child, he truly does. But I intend to see that he gives you the room to grow up yourself before you cross lines that cannot be uncrossed.”

Rickon hoped his dad was talking about babies or something because if he was talking about sex, that ship had sailed. He figured his parents knew that, though. He was only twelve years old, and he knew it.

Arya simply nodded. “Tell us about her. Please.”

“Lyanna was born in September, making her even younger than you are for her grade in school, but she grew faster than you did. Matured earlier. She didn’t even turn fourteen until just after she started high school, but that didn’t keep her from attracting the eye of one of the male teachers. She was flattered by the attention and too young to know what to do with it. He pursued her, and he had her, and later we learned she was by no means the first girl he’d raped.”

“Raped?” Sansa said, aghast.

“There isn’t any other word for it when you’re speaking of a nearly forty year old man and a fourteen year old girl, Sansa. Especially when he’s an authority figure over her,” Catelyn said quietly. “She didn’t realize it was rape, of course. She thought it was love. By the time Brandon figured out precisely what was going on, she was a mess. She begged him not to tell their father, and he didn’t. He didn’t tell Ned, either, and swore me to secrecy on her behalf.” She shook her head. “That’s one promise I wish dearly that I had broken. Lyanna deserved us to behave like grown-ups, not schoolmates.”

“You weren’t even twenty-one yet yourself, Cat.” 

“Well, I’d been with Brandon nearly three years. If that hadn’t taught me the necessity of behaving like a grown-up, then nothing could.” She shook her head. “Brandon was working hard on his own life then. Working to get me back. And still, he spent as much time with Lyanna as he could. That’s why it hit him so hard when she got involved with Rhaegar while still in high school. He felt he should have been able to prevent it. That it was his failure.”

“How did they meet? I’ve never heard that part,” Jon said, echoing what Arya had asked earlier.

“Through Brandon, oddly enough. Brandon had told your grandfather he didn’t want a career at Stark Capital, but Rickard still wanted him to show up at some big events. There was a big charity ball for a local hospital, and I was sick. Rickard had picked that one for the two of us to attend for Stark because of Brandon’s interest in medicine. He didn’t want to go by himself, and he figured it might be fun for Lya to dress up and go to a fancy ball. Rhaegar Targaryen was there on behalf of his father. The Targaryen family were big donors to the hospital. He thought she was Brandon’s date. She looked much older than she actually was, and the two of them hit it off. Why he was there without his wife, I don’t know, but without Brandon ever realizing it, they exchanged numbers, and that was the beginning.”

“She knew he was married,” Dad said. “That’s the part that infuriated me for the longest time. How could she be so reckless, so stupid, so self-centered? But she was really only being young. And vulnerable. You see, Rhaegar Targaryen was a nice man. For all that he was married with two children, he was only about twenty-five or twenty-six which seemed terribly young to Lyanna after the man who’d abused her before. And he honestly liked her. Stupid, selfish man. He treated her like a princess. Told her he loved her, and I think he believed it as much as she did, at least for a time.”

“So they decided to run away together?” Arya asked.

“No,” Dad said more quietly. “That never happened. She saw him one day at the park with his wife and children. He was pushing the little girl on a swing, and his wife had the baby on a blanket. As she watched, he went over to his wife and kissed her. She nearly lost her mind. She ran right up to them and started yelling at him that he’d told her loved her, and how could he love her and kiss someone else? His poor wife was shocked to say the least. Lyanna ran away thinking he’d come after her, but he stayed there trying to explain things to his wife.”

“My Aunt Elia,” Jon said.

“Yes,” Mom said. “Elia Martell and Rhaegar Targaryen had married very young. Two very beautiful people from two very well-known families. It had made all the papers. Everyone knew who they were. After Rhaegar confessed he’d been having an affair, Elia didn’t want a scandal. She told Rhaegar that she wouldn’t leave him, but he had to break it off with the other woman immediately. She had no idea the other woman was a teenager still in high school. As it happened, he didn’t have to break up with Lyanna, she was finished with him. She didn’t tell any of us about it, but she stopped being secretive and began doing better in school and generally acting like a teenager again.”

“Did she have to still go to the school where that creep was?” Arya asked, concerned.

“Oh, he’d left the school at the end of her freshman year,” Dad said. “Did the same thing to another girl in another school the next year, and finally had someone press charges. He went to jail and served two years, I think. At least he can’t teach anymore.”

“But if she broke if off with Rhaegar, how did she end up in a car with him?” Bran asked. 

“Because three months later she realized she was pregnant,” Mom said.

“Oh my god! Did she tell you then? Or Dad or Brandon?” Sansa asked.

“She told me,” came a voice from the doorway. “She told me, and begged me not to tell Brandon because he’d kill the man.”

“Uncle Benjen!” Arya said. 

Rickon had forgotten his uncle was still there since he’d left with Margaery ages ago. He supposed Robb and Margaery wanted to talk alone though. 

“What did you do?” asked Jon.

“What could I do? I was even younger than she was. I went with her to some clinic where she intended to have an abortion, but she decided she couldn’t go through with it. And then I helped her figure out where Rhaegar Targaryen and his wife were living. The Targaryens have a bunch of different residences, and she didn’t know which place was his. He’d obviously never taken her home. And the cell number she had was disconnected.”

“She wanted him back since she was pregnant?” Sansa asked.

“No,” Benjen said definitively. “But she thought he deserved to know about the baby. She had no clue what she was going to do with it, and I honestly think she wanted to talk to an adult. And whatever else he was, Rhaegar was an adult. An adult who should have known better than to ever get involved with her in the first place.” He frowned. “It took us three weeks of research and some old fashioned spying, but we found the place. She didn’t take me when she went to tell him. I wish to God she had. I wish I’d told Ned or Brandon. I wish a lot of things. But she went alone.”

“And she found him there?”

“No.” Mom picked up the story again, and Rickon began to wonder just how Mom knew so much of it. “She found Elia and her children. Needless to say, the woman wasn’t happy to see her. But she let her come in, and Lyanna told her she was pregnant. That she didn’t want her husband, and she wasn’t sure she wanted the baby, but she just couldn’t have an abortion, and she didn’t know what to do. And Elia asked her her name and how old she was. She then called Rhaegar to come home immediately and the three of them apparently talked for hours.”

“How do you know all this, Mom?” Rickon asked. “You weren’t there.”

“Elia Martell told me.”

“I didn’t know you two even knew each other,” Jon said.

“We didn’t. But Elia Martell is both an honest woman and a mother who wanted to protect her children, and so she did what she did, and came to speak with me.” Mom left it there as if she’d actually said something that made sense and continued with the story. “Elia actually suggested that she and Rhaegar might adopt the baby. It seems she couldn’t have any more, and they both had wanted more children. She couldn’t tell how Lyanna felt about that, but at least she didn’t reject it out of hand.”

“Rhaegar’s wife was perfectly cool with her husband just having a baby with some other girl?” Arya asked rather incredulously.

“No, Arya,” their mother said. “She was far from okay with it, but she had two children already to think about. They needed a father. And even though she was furious with him, she cared about her husband. She was trying to come up with a solution that could work for everyone and keep her marriage intact. But it began raining terribly by the time they finished talking. The roads were a mess, and so she asked Rhaegar to drive Lyanna home. She admitted to me she had a dual purpose in that. She had told Lyanna that she really needed to tell her father about her pregnancy, and she wanted Rhaegar to face the man’s wrath. She felt he deserved it. Of course, they never made it home. The car slid off the road, flipped, and they were both killed instantly.”

“We learned she was pregnant after the autopsy,” Dad said.

“But Uncle Benjen . . .”

“Was a terrified kid who’d just lost his sister and mistakenly believed it was his fault. He didn’t say a word about it until long after Dad and Brandon were killed,” Dad said. “And I don’t blame him a bit.”

“I was afraid,” Benjen said. “I shouldn’t have been, but I was. And like I said, I felt responsible. I think that’s why I joined the military as soon as I was old enough. I was more or less running away.”

Uncle Ben had always seemed like the bravest person Rickon knew so him running away seemed impossible to imagine. Once upon a time, his uncle had gone all over the world on missions he wasn’t allowed to talk about. He’d thought about getting out of the military, but figured he’d stick it out until he qualified for retirement now because he’d gotten senior enough that he pretty much had his pick of assignments and could usually get leave when he wanted, and when “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed three years ago, his longtime friend Mark was able to move in with him. Mark’s family had a huge problem with that so they still called each other roommates out of respect for them, but Rickon thought that was stupid. Nobody in his family had been bothered when Uncle Benjen sat them down to talk about it. He had a feeling that his parents had known for a long time, and that was just one more thing they’d chosen never to mention, considering it Uncle Benjen’s private business. 

“But why does everyone think they were running away together?” Jon asked. “And what did you mean about my aunt being honest?”

Mom and Dad looked at each other. 

“Tell them, Ned,” Benjen said. “It’s their family history, and they deserve the truth, even if no one else will ever hear it.”

“It’s a secret?” Rickon asked.

“Not precisely,” Dad said. “It’s more a lie, and one that couldn’t really be believably reversed at this point.”

“Why did you lie?” Rickon asked. His parents were more against lying than anyone he knew.

“We didn’t,” Dad said simply. “We didn’t know the truth. The Targaryens lied.”

“Aerys Targaryen shot and killed Brandon and his father,” Mom said. “He should have been tried for murder, but instead he was found incompetent to stand trial and has been institutionalized ever since. There’s no question that he’s mad, but the Targaryens needed to spin it so that Rhaegar was the real bad guy.”

“Well, he was, wasn’t he?” Arya said. “I mean, he’s the one who screwed around on his wife with a high school girl.”

“Yes,” their mother said. “He was certainly guilty of that, and I don’t mean to absolve him. But that was his only crime. And he was trying to make amends if Elia Martell’s story is to be believed. I have no reason to think she was lying to me. She had nothing to gain from it, and a great deal to lose. You see, Rhaegar owned nothing in his own right. All the Targaryen money and properties belonged to Aerys, and he simply provided incomes and homes to his various family members. When he was institutionalized, his wife took control of the purse strings. Had Aerys been convicted of a crime, things would have been much more complicated for all of them so the Targaryen family pushed hard for the mental incompetence. They also wanted to garner public sympathy for the surviving family members and even Aerys himself—thinking that he could potentially be released someday. Thank God that hasn’t happened at least.”

“I don’t understand,” Jon said. 

“Have you ever met Viserys Targaryen, Jon?” Dad asked. 

Jon shook his head. “Aunt Elia doesn’t like him. Her kids don’t like him either, and they really don’t have anything to do with their father’s family. They’re both older than I am, and Rhaenys is married. They pretty much have their own lives.”

“I don’t blame them a bit,” Dad said. “But has your aunt told you much about Viserys?”

Jon shook his head.

“He’s as crazy as his father. He had fits of temper even as a boy, but he was the heir apparent to the Targaryen fortune once Rhaegar died, and his mother wanted no one looking at any hereditary forms of mental illness. The papers at the time painted Rhaegar as a self-centered, amoral monster whose neglect of his family and lewd behavior had caused his father to sink into depression. None of that was true. Aerys had been mad enough that he’d been more or less kept out of sight long before Rhaegar ever met Lyanna. But the whole family was in the spotlight after that car accident, and Viserys was paraded around like a little prince mourning his father’s mental breakdown over his older brother’s wretched and depraved life. Of course, Lyanna was dragged through the dirt right along with her married lover in spite of the fact that she was a minor. I was told that her death absolved her of any rights to protection.” Dad spoke bitterly.

“Dad, that sounds completely insane. Did it accomplish anything for them?” Jon asked.

Their father shrugged. “I don’t know what they hoped to accomplish, to be honest, son. Aerys is still locked up. Viserys is nominally in charge of the Targaryen money, although he’s carefully handled by an army of people; and his sister Daenerys is a tabloid favorite on the party circuit. If that’s what their mother hoped to achieve, then perhaps she’s pleased with herself.”

“But why didn’t you speak up when you first knew the truth about what Lyanna and Rhaegar were doing in that car that night?” asked Arya. “I mean we all thought she was selfish and awful, but she was just . . . just . . .”

“Just young. And she was trying to do the right thing in the end,” Mom finished for her. “As to why we didn’t go public with the story, it’s because Elia asked us not to.”

“What?” Arya demanded. “Was she really that pissed off at her husband that she’d drag them both through the dirt?”

“No,” Mom said quietly. “She was a twenty-five year old woman with two small children and no means of financial support. The Martells had an old name but very little actual money, and she was completely dependent upon the Targaryens. She was told she and her children would be completely cut off if she contradicted the official story, so she let herself be made into a foolish victim of an abusive and philandering husband before just fading out of the public eye entirely. But she thought Ned and Benjen deserved the truth about their sister so she came to me. Ned and I weren’t married yet, but I’d given birth to Robb, and it was fairly common knowledge that I remained close to the Starks. I honestly don’t know why she chose to tell me, but I suppose she thought I might be more sympathetic to her plight since I was a mother, too.”

“So she waited a long time then. It was probably already too late for you to come out with another story,” Bran said.

“Yes. She waited. She was frightened, Bran. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her or to her children, and yet she couldn’t live any longer with Lyanna’s surviving family not knowing all the truth. Like I said, she’s an honest woman.”

They all kind of just looked at each other for awhile until Sansa finally spoke.

“Wow. That’s nothing like I thought it was for all these years.”

“We’re Lyanna’s family, too. Just like Dad and Uncle Benjen,” Rickon said. “Even if we didn’t ever know her. So it’s good we know the truth.”

“I suppose it is, at that,” Dad said. “It’s getting late, though. I think we should all head to bed.”

“What about Robb?” Rickon asked. “He missed all the stuff about Lyanna. Shouldn’t we go get him?” 

“I don’t think Robb wants disturbed, buddy,” Jon said. “We can tell him tomorrow. Oh wait, he’s flying out in the morning. If he leaves too early, we’ll tell him when he gets back from Highgarden, okay?”

“Should I just tell him to go to bed then?” Rickon asked.

Bran snickered, and Mom and Dad gave each other a look. “Leave Robb be, Rickon,” Dad said. “He’ll find his own way to bed.”

Jon actually snorted and Arya muttered something that sounded like, “Totally unfair!” while Mom carefully refused to meet anyone’s eyes. 

“Go on to bed, all of you,” Dad repeated. “Morning will be here before you know it. Ben, you might as well stay, as late as it is. Mark’s at his parents’, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, which bedroom should I take, Cat?” 

Mom smiled. “Yours, of course. The same one as always. I never give it away when I know you’re coming.”

“All right, young people,” Dad said again. “Head upstairs now.”

Everyone began giving Mom and Dad and Uncle Benjen hugs and heading out of the room. Rickon hung back until last.

“I’m glad you told us all that stuff,” he said to his parents. “It feels like you trust us.”

“We’ve always trusted you, Rickon,” Mom said. “We just can’t help wanting to protect you. We know perfectly well you’re all growing up, but you’ll always be my babies, you know?”

“Don’t you mean, I’ll always be your baby?” he asked her, grinning.

“You’re all my babies,” she laughed, “But you are my baby baby, and that will be true even when you’re towering over your brothers.”

“Good night, Mom. Good night, Dad. Good night, Uncle Ben.”

He was halfway up the stairs when he realized he’d left his catcher’s mitt in the parlor, and he wanted to take it upstairs.

“We don’t do the whole assembly thing anymore, Ben,” he heard his father say as he walked back toward the parlor. “All the gifts are wrapped and stashed in the garage. We just have to bring them in and put them under the tree.”

“I’m on it. You two put your feet up a minute. You got put through the wringer tonight.”

Rickon saw his uncle head out toward the garage.

“Are you all right, my love?” he heard his mother ask.

“I’m fine. How are you, Cat?”

“Well, as Benjen said, I do feel a little as if I’ve been put through the wringer. I suppose we should have told them those things long ago.”

“They weren’t ready. Rickon’s barely old enough now. My god, Cat, our children asking us questions about our pre-marriage sex lives! Are they ever old enough to make that a comfortable conversation?”

No, Rickon thought definitely as he heard his mother laugh.

“Was it hard for you, Ned, to dredge up all that about Lyanna again?”

“Not as hard as I thought it would be. It will always make me angry, Cat. And sad. But it’s kind of nice having the children know a bit more of who she really was. And what happened to her.” 

Rickon started to walk into the parlor, but his father spoke again. “I wish I could say it was as easy to hear you speak about Brandon.”

“Jealous?” His mother’s voice sounded teasing. “If so, it’s only fair, because I still don’t like to think about you with Ashara. It’s ridiculous, I know, and I’m not really jealous, it’s just that . . .”

“I want you all to myself,” his father interrupted. “And I’m perfectly okay with you wanting me all to yourself, my love.”

Silence for a brief moment, and then Mom said, “Mmm. Forever and ever. All mine.” More silence.

Rickon sighed. They were definitely kissing.

“Eavesdropping, young Rickon?”

Rickon jumped at the sound of his uncle’s voice. Benjen stood behind him almost completely obscured from view by the huge armload of presents he carried. “No!” he protested in a whisper. “I just want to get my mitt, but I think they’re kissing.” He made face.

“Well, let’s see. Ned and Cat. Left alone in a room for more than five minutes. Of course, they’re kissing! Here, help me with these, and I’ll clear the way for you.” 

Rickon grabbed some of the presents that looked most likely to fall, and then his uncle breezed ahead of him into the parlor, calling out, “Everybody still got all their clothes on?”

“Really, Ben!” Mom said. “Sometimes you’re worse than my children!” Then she spotted Rickon. “What are you still doing up?”

“He was coming back for his catcher’s mitt and I enlisted him to help carry,” Uncle Benjen said quickly.

“Well, get it and off to bed with you now, Rickon,” Mother said. “And no shaking or otherwise checking out any of those presents until morning. Now scoot!”

Rickon dropped his bunch of gifts by the tree and grabbed his mitt. “Your hair’s all messed up, Mom!” he said with a grin before running out of the room to the sound of his uncle’s laughter.

After he climbed into bed, he lay awake bending the leather of the mitt to soften it up and thinking about what had been a very strange Christmas Eve. He knew he was a long way from being grown up, and he was honestly glad about that. But he felt older than he ever had and he felt like he’d been treated less like a baby than he ever had. When he finally laid the mitt aside and rolled over to sleep, he thought about the crazy collection of people that he called his family, and he realized he wouldn’t trade any of them. And the last thought that struck Rickon Stark before he fell asleep this Christmas Eve was that while he wasn’t a grown up, he knew for sure he was no longer a child.


	6. Christmas Eve 2025--Eddard Stark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both joy and tragedy have filled Ned Stark's years, and when a medical emergency strikes on Christmas Eve, he finds himself reflecting on this life he made with Catelyn and their children.

Ned Stark’s hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly, his knuckles appeared almost bloodless when he looked down at them. He felt a terrible sense of foreboding as he sped along the winding road, and he couldn’t honestly say whether his intense dislike of his destination or his overwhelming desire to be back at his starting point was more responsible. He only knew that had Catelyn been beside him, she would certainly have been saying, “For the love of God, Eddard Stark, slow down before you kill us both!” He could actually hear her voice which only made this excursion feel that much more painful, and his foot pushed a bit harder on the accelerator. The sooner he got there accomplished what he needed to do, the sooner he could leave.

He was so focused on his task that he didn’t hear the soft pings of his iLink until the volume increased to the point that it was impossible to ignore. He thought for a split second about saying ‘Ignore’ and cutting it off, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t risk not knowing if something happened. “Voice only,” he said instead. He knew his kids had no qualms about allowing the little image of whomever was calling to pop up just above the dash even when they were driving, but Catelyn had always maintained it was terribly unsafe, even if it didn’t require you to look down from the road or concentrate on it. He still half felt her presence beside him in her echoed admonishments about speeding, and while he didn’t slow down, he conceded this point to her.

“Daddy, where are you?” came Sansa’s frantic sounding voice before he even had a chance to say anything. Obviously she had her video display on and knew he’d picked up. “You didn’t even tell anyone you . . .”

“What’s wrong, Sansa?” he interrupted in a tight voice. “What’s happened?”

“What? Nothing’s happened. But why did you just . . .”

“Nothing? She’s all right?” He swallowed hard and refrained from closing his eyes against the images from the last few moments before he’d stepped out to answer the call from his daughter-in-law. “Your sister . . .”

“Arya is fine,” Sansa said firmly. “Well . . . as fine as she can be. Gendry’s here now, Daddy. He’s with her. And nothing here has changed.”

“Bran told me not to expect any more information for at least an hour. And that she likely won’t wake for even longer. I’ll be back before then.”

“He told me the same. But where are you? Why did you leave without saying anything.”

 _Because I’m not help to anyone there. Because maybe I can do something here—in the last place I wish to be._ “I’m getting Robb,” he said simply.

“Robb?” Sansa sounded both incredulous and angry. “Did Margaery call you? How could she be so selfish? Jon told her we’d find him when she called him. Ned and Rickon are both out looking for him now. If the selfish prick would answer his damn iLink . . . Anyway, you don’t need to look for him, Daddy. You should be here.”

“I’m not looking for him, Sansa,” Ned said grimly. “I know perfectly well where he is. I’m going to get him and send him home to his wife.”

“Robb called you?” Sansa asked, sounding hopeful. “You’ve heard from him since he left this morning?”

“I know where he is. I’ll get him. Don’t put everything on yourself, Princess. You’re too much like your mother--trying to carry everything. But even the strongest people need help.”

“I’ll never be as strong as my mother,” Sansa said in a choked voice.

“She would disagree, but let your brothers help you anyway. Bran and Jon are both there, aren’t they?”

“Yes. And Ygritte. They’re only letting one person in at a time now, so Jon and Ygritte are trying to make me go get something to eat.”

“Well, go then. And call young Ned to come back and eat with you. I’ll take care of Robb. He and Rickon don’t have to keep searching. You said Gendry’s with Arya now?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s got Minnie?” The thought of his four-year-old, black-haired granddaughter with Catelyn’s eyes in Arya’s face made his heart lurch a bit. She had never been fond of being left with anyone other than her parents or Cat or sometimes himself, and he hated to think of her feeling sad and abandoned.

“Uncle Ben and Uncle Mark have her, along with my three and Will, the brave souls. They volunteered to get all the children out of here when it became clear that this . . .” She made a sort of choking sound, and Ned knew she was trying not to cry. “Minnie went without much protest, surprisingly enough. Mark had been telling silly stories to her and the twins, and he promised to tell them a hundred more. Duncan and Will actually objected a lot more. They’re old enough to remember . . . and they’re scared.” Sansa sounded scared, herself. Ned wished he could touch her, hold onto her, but that was one thing the miraculous iLink that responded to countless voice commands and automatically connected to your car and about a thousand things in your home or office could not provide—the ability to actually be with the person on the other end of a call.

“She’ll be all right, Sansa. I promise.”

The words came almost without thought, springing from his desperation to comfort and reassure his daughter, who may be a thirty-two year old mother of three herself, but would always be his child. He tried and failed to push the memory of the last time he’d made such a promise from his mind. _Please, God, let me keep it this time._

“I believe that, Daddy. I have to,” she said quietly.

“I’ll be there soon, Princess,” he said, and then he said, “End now” cutting off the connection. He had reached the iron gates, and it required all of his focus to muster the will to drive through them. He tried very hard not to think about the journeys he’d taken through those gates in long, black limos and particularly not to think about the most recent time he’d done so—a year and a half ago. 

He hadn’t been back since. Robb had been back often. Too often. Not that it accomplished anything. She wasn’t here. If she were truly here—if any of them were truly here—Ned thought he’d likely come as often as his son. But there was nothing here save stone. And its cold reminder of the permanence of his losses.

He parked the car just off the road where it came nearest to the Stark family plot, which still wasn’t terribly close. It seems the Starks of old liked their privacy as much as those of present day as they’d selected the most secluded part of the cemetery as the final resting place for themselves and their descendants. _Resting place. They aren’t resting. They’re dead. God, I hope and pray they have peace and rest somewhere, but wherever that may be, it isn’t under these slabs of stone._

He saw his son as he walked past the monuments to various ancestors. Robb knelt on the ground before the newest stone marker here—the one that stood not far from Ned’s parents’ large joint marker and the somewhat smaller ones for Brandon and Lyanna. He was tracing the letters with his hand, and as Ned stood still watching him, Robb’s fingers moved over the C . . . the A . . . the T . . . 

Ned’s vision seemed to cloud, and he reached a hand toward his parents’ marker to steady himself. It was hard to breathe, and his heart seemed to drop from his chest to his knees. All his losses had hurt. He’d grieved every loved one whose name was written on one of these stones. But this loss . . . this loss had been unimaginable. Unnatural. And if he felt it so acutely, he could not even imagine how his son continued to breathe.

He took the last few steps forward to put a hand on Robb’s shoulder as he watched him trace the remaining letters of the name. 

ALERIE CATELYN STARK  
Beloved child of joy and laughter  
May you smile with the angels forever  
April 17, 2019—July 4, 2024

She had been a child of laughter, their Ali Cat. Ned honestly couldn’t remember her crying or being out of sorts although she certainly must have been at times in the five years they’d had her. She’d been born with a thicker head of hair than he’d ever seen on a babe, the color of her mother’s. Her eyes had been Robb’s blue, however, and her features an almost perfect blend of her two parents to form a strikingly beautiful face all her own. She’d had Catelyn’s smile, though. And she smiled nearly all the time, this long awaited daughter who’d wrapped her two older brothers around her finger as easily as she had her parents and grandparents—and anyone else who’d met her. Her mother had called her Ali for short, and Arya had quickly added the shortened form of her middle name as well laughing that her new niece was the prettiest and best dressed alley cat she’d ever seen. Marg had hated the nickname at first, but there was no stopping it, and by the time she was two, even all the Tyrells, including Margaery, had always called her Ali Cat. 

She’d been the only granddaughter for awhile, coming after four boys—first her brothers Eddard and then Loras, followed by Sansa’s Duncan and finally Jon’s Willam. Everyone spoiled her, but while she certainly had no doubts about her own worth, she remained a sweet, happy and generally loving child with unshakable faith that life was a grand thing. When she finally received girl cousins—first Sansa’s twins, Lyarra and Dyanna, and then Arya’s Minisa—all three coming within a few months after her second birthday--Ali Cat thought she’d been gifted with amazing living baby dolls to love and spoil—and boss around. She’d been the undisputed queen of the little girls from the beginning, the younger three following her every move from the moment they learned to toddle about on their own legs. It broke Ned’s heart to know that Lya, Dy, and Minnie wouldn’t even remember her. They didn’t really remember her now—they only had a few vague recollections that may well be entirely from pictures and videos. He couldn’t stand that. Remembering Ali Cat was sometimes unbearably painful. But forgetting her was unthinkable.

“Dad,” Robb said, not looking up. Ned squeezed his shoulder. “Is Mom dead? Is that why you’re here?”

Those words stabbed Ned right through the heart. “No. No, son, your mother is alive. She . . . she had her surgery. They found something, and removed it, but she’s out of surgery now, and she’s stable. They don’t expect her to wake for a few more hours, though.” God, he hated the sound of his own voice. He sounded like the doctors—clinical, informative, detached. Nothing like he actually felt.

Robb turned to look up at him then without rising from his knees and while Ned knew him to be nearly thirty-five, he saw a boy of five. “But is she okay? Is she going to die? Found something, you said. Found what?” He sounded desperate and scared, and he looked impossibly young to Ned in spite of the lines that the past year and a half of unrelenting grief had etched into his face. 

“I . . . I’m not sure,” Ned said, hating to voice it aloud. Hating to admit there was any possibility for Catelyn other than a full recovery and a quick return to their home and their lives. “They found a mass of some sort on her ovary.” He sounded like the fucking doctors again, and he hated it. He hated his son down on his knees looking up at him like that. He hated that he’d promised Sansa her mother would be all right, when he honestly didn’t know.

“Cancer?” Robb asked, his voice rising in pitch slightly. “Mom has cancer?”

“We don’t know, Robb!” Ned didn’t mean to shout, but he felt on edge and stretched out beyond his limits, standing here at his granddaughter’s grave, speaking to his son about Catelyn’s illness and surgery. “We don’t know yet.” He tried to speak more calmly. “This thing was pretty big. It was pushing on her intestines or something, and that’s why she hasn’t been eating very much. Apparently, she hasn’t been eating anything at all, really, for the last little bit, and not drinking as much as she should, either. Damn woman didn’t want to say anything about it until after Christmas so first I heard of it was in the ER when they were asking her about it.”

Robb did stand up then. “Your wife hasn’t been eating anything, and you don’t even notice?” His voice held an accusation that Ned tried very hard not to react to. He’d been accusing himself of the same thing since Catelyn had fainted in the kitchen early this morning. He’d known she wasn’t feeling great, but she’d told him she just had some little bug, and she’d still done all the things she’d always done in the days leading up to Christmas—meaning more than any human being should do. He’d been worried about her, but she kept telling him she was fine. And he’d believed her. Right up until he’d heard her hit the floor this morning. And found her bleeding from a cut on her head where she’d hit it on the corner of the table as she fell.

He’d reached her right after Arya had. She’d arrived at the house early in the morning because Minnie had spent the night there while she and Gendry had gone out to some Christmas party. Having to care for a rather rambunctious four-year-old on the night before hosting a large number of guests—even if they are all family members was a lot to ask, even for Arya, so she’d promised to show up first thing in the morning to help Cat, and she had. Cat had opened her eyes and looked at him almost as soon as he’d knelt on the floor opposite their daughter, and she’d immediately started telling them she was fine. She’d only been lightheaded because she hadn’t eaten anything in her rush to get pancakes ready for everyone to eat as they arrived. She’d only agreed to go to the ER when Arya pointed out that no one wanted pancakes with blood dripping into them, and the cut on her head needed stitches. Arya even took over pancake duty in order to get Cat out the door and into Ned’s car. They’d thought they’d be home in an hour or so.

Then the ER doc had asked a lot of questions which Catelyn initially deflected as she’d been doing with Ned for the past two weeks. The man had looked her straight in the eyes and told her he didn’t believe her, and then Catelyn had looked at Ned guiltily and begun giving honest answers about how she felt and what she’d been eating and drinking for the first time in at least two weeks. He’d been furious with her, and he’d made that clear enough when the doctor left them alone to order tests. He’d then gone out and called Arya to let her know that Mom was apparently sicker than she’d been letting on. Arya had apparently gotten the word out because by the time Cat was wheeled away for a scan of her abdomen, all of their children except Bran, two of their children’s spouses, and over half of their grandchildren had arrived, much to the dismay of the emergency room staff who tried to keep everyone out in the waiting area except Ned. He and Catelyn had been alone together when the doctor came in to say there was something concerning on her scan—something that warranted taking her to surgery right away. Ned had felt the world drop out from under his feet, and Cat had started crying.

When he’d put his arms around her and told her that she would be all right, she’d said, “Of course I will, but I’ve ruined everyone’s Christmas!” And he’d wanted to yell at her again. Who gave a damn about Christmas? All he wanted was her safe and well and with him. He hadn’t said any of that, though. He’d just held onto her until the surgeon came in and explained that he’d be cutting her wide open (at least that’s how it sounded to Ned) and said that if she wanted to see any of her visitors, they could come back two at a time, but should do quickly. He had an OR ready to go and needed to get her prepped for surgery.

It all seemed to move too fast, and Ned found himself wondering if the surgeon wanted to hurry home for Christmas Eve. He’d walked out to the waiting room and told his children their mother was going to have surgery. He’d even come up with the name of it, or part of the name at least—exploratory laparotomy. They would do more things depending on what they found. Sansa and Arya had sprinted toward the patient care area as soon as he mentioned the two at a time visitors. As soon as they’d gone, Jon had looked at Robb and said, “You wanna go back with Rickon next?”

And Robb had stood there, looking stricken, and he’d said, “I can’t. I can’t do this!” And then he’d been gone, running out of the waiting room so quickly, he nearly knocked down one poor man. And Ned had known where his mind had gone. They’d let him see Ali Cat—him and Margaery. They hadn’t expected her to survive the surgery they’d performed in a desperate attempt to save her life, and so they’d allowed Robb and his wife back into the trauma bay to say goodbye to their little girl while she still lived, broken and bruised from the impact where the drunk driver had smashed directly into the side of the car where she was strapped into her booster in the back seat. Ned hadn’t gotten to see Ali Cat, but he’d seen Margaery’s cousin’s car. And he’d seen what was left of that booster seat. He didn’t even want to imagine what that sweet baby girl had looked like the last time Robb laid eyes on her. She’d died in surgery just less than an hour later.

“I’m sorry,” Robb said. “I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I’m just . . .” Robb stopped speaking and shook his head as if he couldn’t really explain precisely just what he was.

Ned realized he must have been silent a long time. “It’s all right, Robb. I’m angry at me, too. They don’t know what the mass is yet. It doesn’t have the typical appearance of the common ovarian cancer types. Bran said that could be good or bad. It’s not his field, but some of the rarer types of ovarian cancer are better. And some are worse. Or it might not be cancer at all. The surgeon said he didn’t find anything else anywere, and it sounds like he took everything out of her that she can live without. Now the pathologist goes over all of that with a microscope and it’ll take time before we get more answers.”

Robb stood there silently for a moment. “She lived through surgery, at least,” he whispered.

That sentence broke Ned’s heart. “She did,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “The surgeon said that in spite of being mildly undernourished, your mother is remarkably healthy overall and that she did beautifully through the entire procedure. And Bran said she’s doing exactly as she should be after such a big operation, and that we can’t be impatient. It’s good for her to sleep awhile longer.”

“Bran’s there now?”

Ned nodded. “Wylla came in to cover the rest of his shift.”

“I thought Wylla was at her parents’ for Christmas already,” Robb said.

“She was. That’s why it took awhile for her to get to the hospital so Bran could leave.” Bran was in his second year of a neurology residency at the other major hospital in town—the one associated with the University. He’d met his current girlfriend, Wylla Manderly in his first year there as she was in the same program.

“Good of her to come in and work for him,” Robb said.

“She loves him, Robb. It isn’t surprising.”

Robb’s face darkened slightly and he turned away from Ned. “I can’t go back there, Dad. I’m sorry. I just . . . I can’t sit in that place and just . . . wait. I can’t.”

“I know, son. I didn’t come to ask you to come back to the hospital.”

Robb spun around and looked at him in obvious disbelief. 

“There isn’t anything you could do anyway. Sansa says they’re only letting one person in her room at a time now.” Ned thought Arya’s outburst likely had precipated that, but Robb didn’t need to hear about that.

“You should go back then,” Robb said. “It should be you in there with her.”

“Yes. And I’m going there as soon as you tell me you’re going where you belong.”

“And where’s that?” Robb asked defensively.

“Same place I belong. With your wife.”

“Did Margaery put you up to this?” he demanded.

“She’s worried about you, Robb. When you left the hospital, everyone was worried about you. Your brother assumed you’d go home so he called Margaery to let her know what was happening with your mother and how you had reacted.”

“Fucking great,” Robb said. “Now I’ll get the third degree about where the hell I’ve been all this time.” He ran his fingers through his hair and walked a short distance away to sit down on a bench.

“So tell her,” Ned said simply.

Robb gave a bitter laugh. “She won’t believe me.”

“I knew where to find you,” Ned said. “Why wouldn’t she?”

Robb sighed. “She used to come here all the time, you know. Right after Ali Cat . . . you know.”

“Died,” Ned said softly. “Ali Cat died, Robb. And we all miss her. And I don’t pretend to know what I would have done had I lost any of you like that. I might well have gone mad. But you are alive, son, and so are your wife and your sons.”

Robb didn’t respond to that. “She used to come here all the time. I’d find her here. Sobbing and screaming and cursing. I couldn’t help her. And I think I even envied her in a way. Because I wanted to cry, Dad. I did. But I barely shed a tear. I wanted to scream and shout, but . . . I couldn’t. And she thought . . . she told me I was cold. That she didn’t understand me at all. She even asked me if I cared that Ali Cat was gone.”

“She was hurting, Robb. You both were. And you’re very different people when it comes to expressing how you feel. You know that. You’ve been married ten years now.”

“Eleven,” Robb said dully. “Our anniversary was two months ago. Neither of us said a damn thing about it. I don’t even know if she realized it was the day.”

“Of course she did. And she probably wonders if you realized it.” Ned sighed. “I’m afraid the not crying, the not shouting—well you can blame your father for that. Both of us,” he added quickly when Robb looked up at him with a scowl. “Brandon and I were very different men in some ways, but we were both Starks in our inability to express the difficult emotions. The painful ones. Brandon was always better than I am at the happier ones and a bit quicker to lose his temper as well. I think you’re very like him in the first of those and more like me in the second. But the grief thing—that’s been a hard thing with us for a long time. My dad was the same way. And your mother . . . well, she expresses everything. Even things I wish sometimes she’d keep to herself. We had to learn how to hear each other—to hear what was said and what wasn’t said. And how to give each other what was needed, even if it didn’t come easily.”

“If I want a marriage counselor, Dad, I’ll hire one.”

“Well, maybe you should.”

“Stay out of it, Dad. I’m handling it.”

“You’re not. Robb, you aren’t handling any of it. Ali Cat’s death. The distance between you and Margaery. Your mother’s been worried sick about you for the longest time.”

“Don’t go there. You don’t get to play that guilt card on me. Not now!”

Stunned, Ned realized he’d forgotten for the space of a few seconds that Catelyn was lying in a hospital bed. He’d honestly just spoken as he always would. He referred to Cat easily and naturally in conversation. She did the same with him. The fear of not having her there to speak of so unconsciously threatened to paralyze him, and he pushed it away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I miss her,” Robb said suddenly.

“Your daughter? Of course you do. You always will, Robb.”

“I know that. But I meant my wife. I miss Marg. I miss us.”

“Have you told her that?”

“I’ve tried. I . . . I don’t know how to talk to her anymore, Dad. Everything I say, she . . . she thinks I’m criticizing her in some way or else uses it to fault me. If I go home right now and say, Marg, I miss you, she’ll say well I’ve been right here, Robb, taking care of your sons. Where the hell have you been?”

Ned had no doubt of the truth of that. Margaery had unleashed a few tirades about Robb’s frequent absences from home on him and even on Catelyn. But he had been staying away from home more and more over the past year and a half, and while Robb looked like his mother, he was definitely Stark enough that Ned doubted he’d been very communicative about where he went or why he stayed away. And those silences likely fed his wife’s frustration and anger with him.

Robb and Margaery had been the happiest of couples for nearly the first ten years of their marriage, even if their trip to the altar had been more rushed than they’d intended by little Eddard’s impending arrival. They supported each other, they laughed together easily, they both loved being parents and adored their children as they adored each other; but Ali Cat’s death had revealed that neither of them dealt particularly well with grief. Perhaps they’d never had to learn it. Misgivings about his birth father aside, Robb had always been a happy boy. Most things in life came easy to him, and he’d been loved unconditionally from the moment he was born. From what Ned knew about the Tyrells, the same was true of Margaery—the darling daughter and baby of the family in one of the richest and most influential families in the south. And whatever Ned thought about Mace Tyrell’s business practices or politics, he’d never accuse the man of not loving his children. Robb and Margaery had never experienced a loss of anything near this magnitude, and instead of grieving together, they were allowing it to tear them apart. Cat had intended to sit down with them over Christmas. She’d told him she had to do something. Or at least try to do something. That’s one of the reasons he’d felt compelled to come here after he’d received Margaery’s angry phone call. Well, it had started angry. It had ended with her in tears over Cat and lamenting over how terrible she was to pull Ned into her own troubles today of all days.

“Then you tell her where you’ve been,” Ned said, feeling he’d simply circled around to where this conversation had started. “You’ve got to start somewhere. Instead of getting angry at her questions, try answering them, Robb.”

“She won’t believe me.” He looked down at the ground. “She thinks I’m cheating on her.”

“Are you?”

Robb’s head snapped back up. “What? How dare you even ask me that? I can’t believe that you think so little of me, Dad! Do you honestly think I would do something like that? Do you?”

“No,” Ned said calmly. “But if that’s the way you’ve answered when your wife asks you about it, I can see how she might be angry. And even start to wonder.”

“She should know me better than that!”

“How, Robb? How should she know you at all? You stay away from home for hours at a time when she knows you’re not at work and I’m quite certain you offer little explanation of that when you do go home unless she demands it. And when she demands it, you accuse her of not trusting you. Put yourself in her place, Robb.”

“It can’t just be me, Dad. This isn’t all me.”

“Of course it isn’t. But here’s the thing, Robb. If one of you doesn’t bend first, then you’ll spend next October ignoring your anniversary again, each of you wondering if the other even knew it happened. If it’s more important to you that she acknowledge her transgressions first than it is to have your wife and your sons in your life . . . if you want to spend more time in this cemetery dwelling on what you’ve lost than in your home celebrating what you have, then you keep doing precisely what you’re doing, son. But if I were you, I’d go home.” 

Robb looked at him for a moment, and then turned to look back at Ali Cat’s gravestone without saying anything. The pain etched on his son’s face was so deep and so terrible that Ned wanted nothing more than to put his arms around him and comfort him, but he feared that perhaps he’d done that too long. He understood Robb better than anyone. Even better than Catelyn. He always had understood this boy, now man, who reflected so much of his older brother and himself. And because he understood him, perhaps he’d let him wallow in his self-imposed isolation--his unreasonable, undeserved guilt over being unable to save his daughter--simply because he knew how difficult overcoming it would be for him. He couldn’t do that anymore.

“My father’s name is on one of these stones,” he said quietly. “Along with my mother’s. My brother’s is on one, and my sister’s. And my granddaughter’s.” He saw Robb flinch slightly as he said the last. “I love every one of them as much as I did the day they died. But I’m walking out of here now. Because they’re gone, Robb. They live on in my heart and my memory and in whatever heaven may be. But they’re not in these rocks, and I can’t do a damn thing for any of them. My wife will wake up soon, and she’ll be in pain, and she’ll learn whatever it is she faces next. I’ll be damned if I let her go through that without me, no matter how much it hurts to think about what might happen. I belong with my wife, and I know it. Decide where you belong, son.”

Ned stood there a moment, waiting for some response. Robb didn’t speak or turn around to face him. Fearing that he’d failed his son miserably, he turned to go. When he’d gone about twenty steps, Robb called out.

“Dad?” Ned turned around to see Robb now standing in front of the bench looking back at him. “Call me when Mom wakes up, will you?”

Ned nodded.

“I’ll be at home.”

Ned gave him just the hint of a smile and nodded once more before turning to go on to his car.

He drove back to the hospital even more quickly than he’d driven away from it, sometimes pressing the accelerator down further and further as if doing so could conjure Catelyn into the passenger seat to yell at him for it. He was terrified for her and felt he couldn’t keep breathing much longer without seeing her, touching her. His mind was still filled with pain and worry for Robb as well. He prayed that the boy, _man, he’s nearly thirty-five years old!,_ really would go home to Margaery and the boys. His thoughts also turned to Arya. He had left the hospital with her still seething after her angry outburst, and he’d felt guilty at abandoning her, and abandoning Sansa, Jon, Bran, and Rickon to deal with her. Thank God Gendry had arrived soon after he left. 

Thinking of Gendy actually brought a small smile to his face in spite of his numerous worries. For years, he’d feared that Arya had rushed to grow up too fast and that her relationship with Gendry was doomed to end badly, but now he felt that Gendry was probably the only man on the earth who was content to let Arya be Arya but not willing to let her shut people out or wallow in her own anger, both of which she had an occasional tendency to do. He’d never left her in spite of her multiple refusals to marry him. He’d given her space, but had taken space and time for himself as well—never letting Ned’s strong-willed daughter dictate his own life any more than he tried to dictate hers. If it hadn’t been for Minnie—whose conception was certainly unplanned—they’d probably still be unmarried. But, where Arya had viewed marriage as entirely unnecessary to herself, she’d felt it absolutely essential for her child’s parents. Sansa had teased her about internalizing more of their mother’s conventional values than she pretended, and Ned had laughed out loud although not for the reasons the girls thought it was funny.

In many ways, Arya was more like her mother than any of their children although neither Cat nor Arya seemed able to see it. As for the other kids, like most people they tended to easily see Sansa’s similarities to her mother in appearance, style, vocal intonations, manners, and tendency to mother everyone. Having grown up listening to Arya express disinterest in almost everything her mother and sister enjoyed doing together and witnessing the rather impressive battles that took place between Catelyn and Arya during Arya’s teen years, the kids had a harder time seeing the similarities between Arya and her mother. Ned, however, had always seen it—even their most heated arguments had been provoked by their similarities as much as their differences. They were two of the most stubborn people he’d ever met, and both had a remarkably strong sense of justice and fair play. If they felt they were right about something, it was difficult for them to let it go. They both loved without reservation which sometimes left them too vulnerable to becoming hurt or angry. And neither allowed anyone to hurt the people they loved. Even a casual observer of the Stark family could easily see that Arya’s relationship with her mother was the most complicated of all the children. What many people, even some who knew them well, seemed to miss is that it was also, in many ways, the closest. She and Gendry lived the closest to Winterfell of all the kids, and Arya came by nearly every day. In spite of a childhood spent rebelling against nearly every rule Catelyn imposed, she still held her mother up as the highest standard of motherhood itself, and the two women had grown closer than ever once Arya became a mother herself. Minnie was very much her Grandma’s girl, and Arya encouraged it.

Ned found a parking spot and walked to the hospital entrance still thinking about his wife and daughter when the daughter in question came running out of the door and nearly collided with him.

“What the fuck, Dad? You just take off when Mom’s unconscious and nobody knows anything and none of these assholes will even talk to us because you’re the only name on some paper and . . .”

“Arya, please,” Ned said wearily. “Is your mother all right?”

“No, she’s not all right! She had her belly cut open and a big tumor and half her organs removed! Where have you been?” Arya’s grey eyes glared at him accusingly.

Ned clenched his teeth, not wishing to shout at his daughter today. “Talking to Robb. Is your mother stable?” he asked, rephrasing his question into one of those unfeeling medical terms he hated so much.

“She’s the same,” Arya said grudgingly. “Dr. Do Nothing came in a little bit ago, but just looked at the machines, asked where you were, and left.”

“Why didn’t someone call me?” Ned asked, alarmed. If the man had news about Catelyn, he wanted it immediately.

“He said he didn’t really have much to tell you and he’d be back. I asked if the pathology report was back and he said he really couldn’t speak to anyone except Mom or you. I think it kind of pissed him off when I told him that Mom was unconscious and you were gone so he might need to pick a third option.”

“Arya . . .”

“I know, I know. Hippo or whatever that old privacy law is called. I can’t believe Mom didn’t put all of us down on the paper.”

Ned raised an eyebrow. “Would you like to make your personal medical information a family affair?”

“Of course not, and that’s not what . . . oh never mind. Where’s Robb? You said you got him. Ned and Rickon couldn’t find him. He wouldn’t answer their calls.”

“He’s on his way home.”

“Home? He should be here! Mom could have died, and we still don’t know what the hell’s going on with her. How can Robb just go home?”

 _Judgmental,_ Ned thought. When he’d considered the shared traits of his wife and second daughter earlier, he’d forgotten that one. Normally, they were both remarkably fair-minded, but when under stress, particularly when worried about the people they loved, they both had difficulty seeing things except from their own points of view which could lead them to make some fairly harsh judgments. “Robb needs to be with his wife at the moment, Arya,” he said rather sternly. “And I need to be with mine. So if you’d allow me to actually enter the hospital . . .”

She scowled at him, but she moved aside and let him walk through the door ahead of her. “Who’s with her now?” he asked as they walked through the cold corridor.

“Rick and Bran. Ned made Sansa leave the hospital with him to get something to eat after he and Rick came back here. Jon and Ygritte just went to the hospital coffee shop.”

“I thought only one person was allowed to sit in Catelyn’s room now.”

Arya rolled her eyes. “Well, apparently, the rules don’t apply to Doctor Stark. He rolls in and out as he pleases, although even he can’t get them to say anything about Mom’s pathology report. Just answers to questions about her IV and other stuff that nobody else really understands.”

“Where’s Gendry? I thought he was with you.”

“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t need a babysitter. I haven’t attacked anyone since you left, I promise. And I didn’t attack that stupid nurse. I only asked her questions, none of which she could answer, and then she tied Mom’s hands to the bed, and I wasn’t having that! Don’t tell me you liked that, either, because I saw you, Dad.”

He hadn’t liked it. Soft restraints, they had called them, and the woman had fastened them around Catelyn’s wrists, securing them loosely to the bed rails, while Ned and his children had been asked to wait in the hall. He’d objected to being sent out, and the woman had said it was for Catelyn’s privacy as she put her into a different gown and got her settled. He understood having the children leave. Catelyn would be mortified by the thought of a stranger undressing her at all—to have all her children witnessing the event would make it far worse. But he had undressed his wife countless times, and for a stranger to feel his presence in this situation would be less welcome to Cat than hers would had irritated him. Still, he’d gone out with the others when the nurse insisted.

When they’d come back in—Ned, Sansa, Arya, Jon, Bran, and Rickon—the nurse had begun explaining that only two visitors were allowed at a time when Arya had suddenly shrieked, “How dare you tie my mother to that bed?”

That’s when Ned had seen the restraints. Arya had rushed to the bedside and was removing one while the nurse told her to calm down and stop. Arya had informed her she would calm down when her mother wasn’t tied up like some sort of animal and shoved her when she tried to take her hands.

Jon had grabbed Arya then and pretty much carried her out as she continued to shout, “Untie her!”

Bran had followed after Jon and Arya as quickly as his chair allowed, Sansa had started crying, Rickon had looked shell shocked, and Catelyn had lain there so still and pale that Ned feared she was dead. She had never ignored the cries of any of their children. Not once. He’d put his hand on hers and it had felt unnaturally cold. He’d pressed his cheek to her face, and it was slightly warmer. He could feel the reassuring tickle of her breath against his beard as she exhaled, but she’d given no sign that she knew he was there.

“She’s still deeply sedated, Mr. Stark,” the nurse had said. “She won’t wake for some time.”

“Why are her hands tied?” he’d asked.

“Those are soft wrist restraints. When patients first come out of anesthesia, they can be very confused. We don’t want her trying to get up because she could hurt herself.”

Ned had looked up at the woman. “She won’t be alone. And we won’t let her come to any harm. Take those off.”

“I . . . the doctor ordered them. I’ll have to get an order.”

“Get it.”

She hadn’t looked happy, but she’d nodded and left the room. Without speaking, Rickon had undone the restraints and pushed chairs up by the bed for Sansa and Ned. “I gotta call Shir and tell her Mom’s out of surgery. And I’ll check on Jon and Arya.”

“Will you go see Ned and Ygritte and the kids in the waiting room?” Sansa had asked. “They won’t let the kids back here at all. I asked.”

Rickon had nodded, kissed Catelyn’s cheek, and left the room after gripping Ned’s shoulder with his hand. At twenty-four, Rick was a tall, powerfully built young man who continued the regular workout habits he’d developed as a college athlete, but his heart was even bigger than his muscles. He’d used his psychology degree to get a job working as a counselor for at-risk youth and he volunteered as a coach for kids’ teams in both baseball and football. He’d been a scared kid himself when he’d walked out of that hospital room, though. Ned had seen it plainly enough. They were all scared.

He wasn’t certain how long he and Sansa sat there silently, each with one of Catelyn’s too-cool hands in their own before his iLink had pinged and Margaery’s face had appeared in front of him. 

“Who is it?” Sansa had asked. Ned didn’t understand exactly how the iLink images worked—part Star Wars hologram and part magic as far as he could tell—but no one could see them except the person wearing the iLink over their ear or on their collar.

“I’ll take it outside,” he’d said. Then he’d kissed his unresponsive wife and found a quiet place to speak with his very upset daughter-in-law. He hadn’t seen Catelyn since then until he walked into her room with Arya now.

She looked precisely the same as when he’d left her, and the sight of her lying there so still both terrified him and reassured him. She was still here. The coldness of those stones in the cemetery had been clinging to him, and he stood there a moment just watching the subtle rise and fall of her chest to help banish it from him. “I’m back, Cat,” he said, speaking to his unconscious wife rather than either of his sons. He then walked to the bed and kissed her lips. She still didn’t move, but her flesh was definitely warmer. He reached for one of her hands—still unrestrained, he saw—and it was more her normal skin temperature as well. “She’s warm,” he said, looking up at Bran who sat in his chair across the bed.

Bran nodded. “People always feel cold after surgery because the anesthesia depresses body functioning. And her surgery was a pretty long one. They’ve been lightening her sedation. She should wake up before too long.”

“Good,” Ned said. 

“Arya, I guess we should both get out of here so Dad can stay,” Rickon said then.

“Fuck that. Bran never leaves. And we’re not hurting Mom by just sitting in here.”

“Arya,” Ned started to say.

“Oh, I’ll go peaceably when they come to kick me out," Arya assured him, "but it’s not like they’ll throw us in jail or anything, Rick. We can stay until they boot us.”

“Where’s Gendry?” Ned asked, recalling that Arya had never actually answered his question.

“Getting Minnie.”

“I thought Ben and Mark had the kids.”

“They do,” Arya said, “And she was fine—Mark was telling her and the twins how they could all be flower girls at his and Ben’s wedding this summer and pick out whatever pretty princess dresses they wanted.” She smiled and shook her head. “Minnie loves her princess dresses.”

“Yeah, well, she also loves to beat up on Duncan, Will, and Loras, so she’s still yours,” Rickon said, laughing. “She even went after Edd with a fork at Thanksgiving after he took the roll she wanted even though he’s big enough to just pick her up and hold her there while she yells and kicks!”

“Ha. Ha. Anyway, she was fine there, but then Duncan heard Uncle Ben and Uncle Mark saying something about Mom having surgery. And it freaked him out, and he asked if Mom was going to die like Ali Cat because Ali Cat had surgery and died. And Minnie heard him and started crying hysterically that she didn’t want Grandma to die, and they haven’t been able to calm her down since. She keeps demanding to see Mom. So Gendry went to get her.” She looked at Ned and made a face. “After I promised to be on my best behavior.”

“They won’t let her back here, Arya,” Bran said.

Arya just shrugged, and Ned knew perfectly well that she had no intention of asking anyone’s permission.

“Maybe we should all take a little break from here,” Bran said. “Let Mom and Dad have some time.”

Perhaps it was foolish, given that Catelyn was unconscious, but Ned realized he did want to be alone with his wife. He hadn’t been since she’d gotten out of their bed to go downstairs that morning.

Arya and Rickon nodded their assent, kissed Catelyn, and told her they’d see her soon. Bran’s chair prevented him from getting quite close enough to kiss her, but he took her hand in his. “I love you, Mom. I’m gonna leave for a bit because Dad’s probably gonna kiss you or something, and you know how tired we all get of watching that stuff.”

Ned smiled. “Do you think if I try hard enough, I can get her to wake up like Prince Philip does Aurora?” Sleeping Beauty was one of Minnie’s current favorites which meant he had watched it entirely too many times in the past month.

“Maybe,” Bran said with a laugh as he wheeled his chair around the end of the hospital bed. Bran’s legs had been paralyzed for over five years now—since that terrible accident on a rock-climbing trip his senior year in college. He’d been despondent for several months after that, feeling that all his life plans were over. His girlfriend, a very athletic girl who’d loved climbing as well, hadn’t been able to handle it and she’d broken up with him. Ned and Catelyn had worried terribly about him. But then he’d somehow pulled himself out of it. He’d worked unbelievably hard at his rehab—his upper body strength was easily as good as Rickon’s, graduated college, and been accepted to medical school where he’d excelled in spite of his disability. He decided to specialize in neurology, wanting to do research on treating spinal cord injuries. 

“Thank you for being here, Bran,” Ned said. “And thank Wylla for me.” Wylla Manderly was a rather outspoken young woman with a penchant for dying her hair interesting colors and an absolutely brilliant mind. She, too, was training as a neurologist, and she and Bran had fallen in love almost as soon as they met. Bran had told Ned that she never once made him feel he was less a man because he couldn’t walk, and Ned had decided right then that the girl was a class act regardless of what garish shade her hair might be.

“She’ll be here when her shift’s over. Well, when my shift’s over. Neither of us were scheduled over night or tomorrow.”

“She isn’t going back home?” Ned asked.

“Not with Mom sick. She wants to be with me. With us.”

“She’s a good person, Bran,” Ned said. “You’re lucky, you know. Not as lucky as I am, but then there’s no one quite like your mother.”

Bran looked at Catelyn and smiled. “No, there isn’t. But there’s no one like Wylla, either.” He looked back up at Ned. “You know what’s funny? Mom and Wylla don’t have much in common, but both of them think I can do anything I put my mind to. And both of them have a way of making me believe it. Even when no one else can. Do you know what I mean?”

“More than you know, Bran. And I’m glad you can see that. “

“Dad, did you find Robb?”

Ned nodded.

“The cemetery?”

Somehow it didn’t surprise Ned that Bran would be the sibling to realize where Robb had gone. Robb and Jon had always been much closer, but since Ali Cat’s death, Robb had been distancing himself from Jon as much as he had been from Margaery and everyone else who loved him. Bran had simply always been the most observant of all his and Cat’s children.

“Yes. He’s going home now.” _I hope he’s going home._

“Is Robb okay?”

“No. But he will be.” _I have to believe he will be._

“He will, Dad. Some things are just . . . hard.”

Ned looked down at his still, silent wife, wishing she’d wake up and smile at him. Wishing the damn doctor would come in and tell them everything was fine. “Some things are hard, son. But we’ll endure. That’s what my father used to say. The Starks will endure.”

“Sounds pretty grim to me. How about ‘The Starks will continue to be awesome, even when things suck’? I like that better.”

Ned actually laughed. “Sounds like something Wylla would say.”

Bran shrugged. “I like the things Wylla says.” Then he smiled. “Mom likes the things you say. Talk to her, Dad. There are plenty of reports that unconscious people can hear when they can’t do anything else. I’m sure Mom can hear you better than anyone.”

“Is that a professional opinion, Dr. Stark?”

“Partly. The medical evidence does exist. And I know you and Mom. I don’t think it’s possible to really disconnect you. You can reach her.”

Ned smiled as Bran rolled his chair on out the doorway, and then he turned to his sleeping wife. She was still pale, but he thought her color looked better than it had. He realized suddenly that her hair had been brushed, and immediately knew that must have been Sansa. Catelyn wasn’t a terribly vain woman, but she’d hate having her hair in tangles with people traipsing in and out. Sansa knew that. Her hair looked beautiful, a splash of bright auburn against the white of the hospital pillow with the scattered silver strands that she disliked, but not enough to color them. He thought they were beautiful, but he found everything about his wife beautiful.

“But I think everything about you is beautiful, Cat,” he said aloud. It didn’t feel odd at all to him to speak to her, although he suspected it might have if the kids were still in the room. “Our son seems to think we share a mystical connection,” he said. “What do you think of that?”

She didn’t answer, of course. He held her hand with one of his and reached up to stroke her hair with the other. “I never get tired of playing with this. Oh, I know you get tired of me playing with it. You’ve told me it gets annoying at times. But you put up with it, my love. You put up with all the silly things I do.”

He sighed. “Our children are frightened, Cat. Jon puts up a brave front, but he can’t even stand to be in here too long because it’s hard for him to see you like this. So he’s busy taking care of everyone else. Sansa’s taking care of everyone, too, but she’s also finding ways to take care of you. Your hair, for instance. She’s doing too much, I’m afraid, but Ned’s taking care of her. Young Ned, I mean. And Ygritte’s here with Jon. Arya . . . Arya’s like a damned wildcat. She’s so frightened of losing you, my love, and she’s ready to take apart anyone who doesn’t treat you like a queen. Not that I blame her for that.” He looked at Catelyn’s unrestrained wrists and raised the hand he held up to his lips to kiss it just because he could. “She’ll be all right as soon as you are, though. I only hope she can keep from getting herself and all the rest of us kicked out of here before then. Bran’s here, too, you know. We weren’t going to see him until much later tonight, but Wylla covered his shift so he could get over here. I know you were disappointed that he might miss dinner, but really, Cat, this was awfully extreme just to get him earlier on Christmas Eve.” It was a poor joke, and he wasn’t certain if he was teasing her or honestly angry at her for being sick, for not telling him sooner, for scaring him to death.

He couldn’t speak for a minute as his throat felt suddenly tight. As he watched her, her eyelids pressed more tightly together, she frowned, and then she swallowed, looking very uncomfortable. Then her face returned to its previous expressionless sleep. 

“Cat! Cat? Can you hear me, my love? Does something hurt you?” 

There was no reply, but he hadn’t imagined that pained expression. What had the command been for the room’s iLink? “Call nurse,” he said clearly. 

A moment later, he heard a voice ask, “Can I help you?”

“My wife frowned,” he said, and immediately realized how ridiculous he sounded. “She’s unconscious. And she sort of made a face and swallowed, and it looked like she’s in pain.”

After a minute, the voice responded, “Someone will be with you in a moment, sir.”

“End,” he said firmly in case the person on the other end hadn’t ended the connection. He didn’t want anyone else listening to his conversation with Catelyn. Or his monologue, he supposed it was, since she couldn’t answer. All the communication possibilities iLink had brought with it when it first hit the market five years ago were incredible, but sometimes Ned felt a little like Big Brother could easily listen to anyone now, and it made him nostalgic for old fashioned telephones hooked into walls by cords.

“The kids would laugh at that, wouldn’t they?” he asked Catelyn. “Remember how they made fun of me when I first tried to figure out texting?” There were texting boards for the iLink, but he almost never used his. It was far too easy to talk now—even just to leave a quick message which the recipient could get in text or voice as they chose--and he’d always felt it was just as rude to text when in a group of people as it was to talk, so it didn’t really bother him to walk away to take a call.

“Rickon’s been here with you. I still can’t believe our baby has a baby, Cat. Shireen’s at their apartment with little Steff. She won’t leave him with anyone yet, but then again he’s only two months old so I suppose I don’t blame her. You need to wake up and get out of here so you can see the Christmas outfit she’s got planned for him. Rickon’s never cared a thing about clothes in his life, but even he’s talking about this outfit. She was going to have him wear it over to our place today, but . . .” He stopped speaking again. Even if Catelyn woke up this instant, she wasn’t leaving this hospital today. She wouldn’t see Steffon in his First Christmas outfit. Given the seriousness of the situation, it was a ridiculous thing to be upset about, but he knew how upset she’d be about it, and so it bothered him.

“Mr. Stark?”

He turned to see the same nurse who’d kicked him out of his wife’s room earlier in order to change her gown and tie down her hands.

“I was told Mrs. Stark seemed to have some discomfort?” she said, speaking as if it were a question rather than a statement.

“Yes. She frowned and closed her eyes more tightly, and then she swallowed. Or tried to swallow. She hasn’t done it again.”

“She’s coming up from her anesthesia,” she said. “Her throat’s likely sore.”

“Her throat?” Ned asked. She’d had abdominal surgery. Why would her throat hurt?

“From her ET tube.” At his blank look, the nurse rephrased that. “Her breathing tube. For surgery, she had a tube in her airway so the anesthesiologist could breathe for her. It can cause some irritation, especially for longer procedures, like your wife’s.”

“Can you give her something to make it stop hurting?” Ned asked.

The nurse walked to the bedside and examined Catelyn’s face closely. She even reached out and touched her neck. “She doesn’t seem uncomfortable now. I really can’t give her anything in her IV without it possibly making her sleepier, and the doctors want her to wake up now. Once she’s fully awake, if she asks for pain relief, I have orders for a couple things.”

Ned nodded. “Should I call you if she does it again?”

The nurse smiled at him. “There’s no need. Until she’s fully awake, she doesn’t really need any medication.”

Almost as soon as the woman left the room, Catelyn made the face again, and it was even plainer to him that she hurt.

“Damn,” he said, and she didn’t react at all to his swearing. “They won’t give you anything, Cat. I’m sorry.” She didn’t react to his apology either, and he found himself feeling angry at the nurse, at the doctor who hadn’t shown back up since he’d gotten back, and even at Catelyn for hurting when he couldn’t do anything to help her.

“I wonder if that’s what’s wrong with Robb,” he said softly. “I’m angry at you, Cat. I’m so angry right now that I can’t stand it. Because you’re hurt and I can’t fix it. He told me today that he couldn’t do anything to help Margaery when she hurt after Ali Cat died. He’s still in so much pain, my love, and he’s taking it out on himself and the people he loves. I think Marg’s doing the same thing. I hate it for them, but I understand it. I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

He put his hands on either side of her face, cupping it gently. “I love you so much, Catelyn. I think I loved you even when I was trying to make you care about understanding differential equations and you were only concerned with understanding Brandon. I tried not to love you. I told myself I didn’t love you because I knew how much you loved him. But I think I was lying to myself. How could I possibly know you and not love you?” He kissed her forehead. “And I love you more now than I’ve ever loved you before. That’s true every day. Did you know that? I have no idea how that even works because I cannot imagine loving you any more than I do right now, but it’s true. Every day I know I couldn’t possibly love you more, and the next day I do.” He felt actual tears stinging his eyes then, something he didn’t feel often. “And while that sounds like some lovely sentiment for a Hallmark card, it’s not all lovely. Because I’m a selfish bastard, Cat. And I love you so much that I cannot comprehend living without you, do you understand? The thought that you might actually die and leave me here alone hurts so much that I can’t breathe if I let myself think about it. And it makes me so angry at you to think it’s even a possibility. And I hate myself for being angry at you right now. I just . . . don’t die, Cat. Please don’t leave me here without you. Don’t leave our children and their children. We all need you so much. I need you.” He sniffed and realized with a start that tears were actually falling down his face as he spoke to her. “I need you, Cat,” he whispered.

Then he pressed his lips to hers and kissed her with all the love and longing and hurt and anger and fear inside him. Of course, this wasn’t that silly movie of Minnie’s so she didn’t wake up, but her lips did move just a tiny bit against his own—he knew he felt it--and he allowed himself to take some small comfort from that. 

“Forgive me, my love,” he said, sitting up in his chair once more and taking her hands in his. “I will try to love you better. I will try to love you more unselfishly. But I’ll keep trying to hold you here with me. I’m not strong enough to keep from doing that.”

He closed his eyes then and simply let himself feel the warmth of her hands in his as he tried to regain some control over himself before any of his children returned. When someone did come in, though, it wasn’t any of the kids. It was the surgeon and another man Ned hadn’t seen before. He quickly got to his feet to greet them.

“Mr. Stark?” the surgeon said. “This is the chief pathologist here, and he’s been looking over all the slides from your wife’s surgery personally.”

Ned looked at the man as if he could tell him his future, and in a way, he supposed he could.

“Mr. Stark,” the pathologist began, “The tumor on your wife’s left ovary was malignant.”

Ned felt his head swim. “Malignant . . . that’s cancer.”

“It is,” the man confirmed. “However, there is good news here.”

“Good news?” Ned asked, grasping at straws. Catelyn had cancer. What the hell was good about that?

“It isn’t the more common type of ovarian tumor. It’s what’s called an endometroid tumor, and it was removed intact—no rupture or bleeding from the tumor into the peritoneal cavity.”

If that man thought he understood any of that, he was sadly mistaken. “Bran,” he said. “I want Bran in here. And I want you to repeat whatever you just said in English.”

“One of Mr. Stark’s sons is a neurology resident at University Hospital,” the surgeon explained to the pathologist. “Is he still here?” he asked Ned. 

Ned nodded. “They’re all here. Somewhere.” Except Robb. Robb wasn’t here. And Sansa was out eating? Is that what Arya had said? She should be back by now.

“Do you want to gather all your family members so I can explain this to everybody, Mr. Stark?”

Ned nodded again. “But tell me now what you just said, and why it’s good news.”

“If a tumor ruptures, it can spread cancer cells throughout the area. That’s a bit of a simplification, but . . . suffice it to say that the fact that your wife’s tumor was removed intact reduces the chances that it had spread.”

That was good. “But it was a big tumor. You said it was big. It kept her from eating.” Ned looked at the surgeon as he spoke, but the pathologist answered.

“It was a fairly large tumor, but this particular type is one that can grow quite large without metastasizing.”

“Without what?”

“Spreading to other sites. It’s entirely possible that the entire cancer was removed today. In fact, having examined sample slides from both ovaries, uterus, lymph nodes, and omentum removed from your wife’s abdomen today, I’d say it’s even likely. I found no evidence of cancer in any tissue I studied except for her original mass.”

Ned tried hard to process what the man was saying. “You got it all out. My wife doesn’t have any more cancer inside her. Is that what you’re telling me?”

“I can’t be 100% certain, Mr. Stark,” the man said. “It will take days to go through all of the surgical specimens. And I have set up some special stains which will take more time before they’re ready to look at. But my preliminary finding is that your wife had a Stage I, localized endometroid ovarian tumor with no metastases.”

Ned didn’t begin to understand most of what the man said, but it seemed the gist of it was that Catelyn might be cured of whatever cancer had been growing in her belly. “She might be cured?” he asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Well, I wouldn’t use the term cure right now,” the surgeon said, “But things look very promising, Mr. Stark. Very promising, indeed.”

“Get my kids,” Ned said, somewhat dazed. “Get my kids, now.” It occurred to him that he was the one wearing an iLink with all his kids’ numbers programmed in. “Party call,” he said. “Bran, Sansa, Jon, Arya, Rickon.” Within a minute, soft pings and his children’s faces appearing before him told him they’d all picked up. They all started talking at once, too.

Arya was loudest, of course, with “What’s wrong, Dad? What’s happened?”

“Pathology report,” he said tersely. “It sounds okay. Get in here and hear it for yourself. Bran, ask them a lot of questions, please. I didn’t understand half of it.”

All five of them started to ask him questions immediately, talking over each other. “End call,” he said. They could get in here and listen to the doctor themselves.

Within moments, Catelyn’s hospital room seemed to overflow with people. In addition to the five Stark children present in the hospital, Ned Dayne and Ygritte had come in along with Gendry who held a wildly squirming Minnie in his arms. He was followed by two nurses loudly protesting both the number of people and the room and apparently Minnie’s very existence. Everyone seemed to be speaking at once, and Ned found himself rather impressed when the surgeon made himself heard above the chaos.

“This is not good for Mrs. Stark!”

That managed to quiet everyone rather quickly, and Bran asked if there were a conference room nearby. Apparently, there was, and Catelyn’s doctors began herding everyone out the door. Gendry had been barely inside the doorway, but he waited there for Arya, who had been the first through the door and as the crowd thinned out, the little girl in his arms caught sight of the woman in the bed.

“Gramma Cat! Gramma Cat!” she shouted, flinging herself forward as if she could dive across the room to the bed from her father’s arms.

“Minnie, you must be quiet!” Gendry admonished, but the child wasn’t listening. 

“I want my Gramma!” she wailed. “Lemme go! Lemme go!”

“Sir, you must remove that child!” one of the nurses said very firmly. It was the same nurse who had restrained Catelyn’s wrists earlier, and Ned stepped forward quickly before Arya could get to her.

“Come here, Mouse,” he said quickly, reaching out his hands for his granddaughter. “Be a good, quiet girl, and you and I will stay here with Grandma while everyone goes to talk with the doctors.”

Minnie stopped thrashing as if considering his words, and then reached out for him. “I wanna go to Grampa! Lemme go, Daddy!”

Gendry relinquished her without protest, and Ned felt the familiar weight of his granddaughter in his arms. The child immediately pointed to Catelyn’s bed and began bouncing in his arms as if to propel him in that direction.

“Mr. Stark, that child cannot stay . . .”

“This child is my granddaughter,” Ned interrupted, “And if everyone will simply leave her alone, she’ll be good as gold. She doesn’t like being yelled at.”

Arya was standing beside Gendry now, grinning at her father. Gendry had an arm around her, and Ned wasn’t certain if that was for emotional support or restraint should the woman keep complaining about Minnie.

“I want . . .” Minnie started loudly, but Ned laid a finger on her lips.

“You must be quiet, Minnie Mouse, or the ladies will make us leave. Only the quietest people get to stay in Grandma’s room. She’s taking a nap.”

Minnie seemed to consider that a moment. Then she looked at the frowning nurse and flashed one of her brightest smiles. “I can be quiet,” she said sweetly, batting her big blue Catelyn eyes at the woman. “I’m Minnie Mouse, and mouses are very quiet.”

Bran, the only other Stark sibling left in the room besides Arya laughed out loud. “She’s had her flu shot,” he said to the surgeon, ignoring the nurse completely. “And she’s already in here. I know it’s against the rules, but surely it wouldn’t hurt to let her stay just while you talk to my brothers and sisters and me.” He looked toward Ned. “That is if you’re really okay with staying here instead of coming with us, Dad.”

“I can stay here with her, Ned,” Gendry said quickly.

“No,” Ned told him. “I’ve heard what the men have to say, children, and I’d rather not leave your mother. Do ask all the questions you feel need to be asked, Bran, because no doubt I’ll have some for you once I’ve had time to think at all.”

“You really don’t mind her, Dad?” Arya asked.

“Not at all. Go on, now. Go hear what the men have to say about your mother.”

“But, Dr. Michaels . . .” the nurse began.

The surgeon looked at Bran, then Ned and Minnie, and then the nurse. “Oh, I can’t see the harm in it for a few minutes. Her parents will take her out as soon as we’ve finished speaking.”

Arya and Gendry both nodded as eagerly as children who sense they are about to get their way and are prepared to promise anything to seal the deal. 

“Well, then. Shall we?” the doctor said to Bran, Gendry, and Arya. All the others had already followed the other doctor out. This one turned to Ned and asked, “You are comfortable with my discussing the particulars of your wife’s case with everyone here? She’s given you medical power of attorney while she’s not capable of making her own decisions, so you can give consent for it.”

“Tell them anything they want to know about her surgery and what the pathology means, and what happens next,” Ned quietly. “She’s their mother.”

The man nodded and started out the door. Ned grabbed Bran by the arm before he could turn his chair to follow him. “You tell me the truth, Bran,” he said. “You listen to these men, and then you come tell me the truth. Do you hear me?”

Bran nodded. “I will, Dad.”

Then Ned and Minnie were alone in the room with the unconscious Catelyn.

“Wake up, Gramma Cat! It’s me!” Minnie yelled moments after the others were gone, her promise to be quiet as a mouse completely forgotten.

“Minisa!” Ned said, admonishing her. “You promised you’d be quiet.”

She pouted at him. “I don’t want Gramma Cat to take a nap. She’s a grown-up. She doesn’t need naps.”

“I’m afraid she does, Mouse. You see, she’s very sick.”

“Does she have a bad cold?”

“Not exactly.” His arms were beginning to ache. Minnie had a slim build like her mother’s but she was Gendry’s child, too, and very tall for her age. She was noticeably taller than Sansa’s twin girls even though the twins were a couple months older. Her long body and legs along with her constant wiggling made holding her for long periods of time difficult. “Be quiet, and we’ll go sit by Grandma, okay?”

It was a relief to sink back into his chair with the weight of the child now on his lap rather than in his arms. Surprisingly, Minnie sat quite still, staring at Catelyn. “How come she doesn’t move?” she asked finally.

“I told you she was sick, and she . . .”

“But she’s not dead, right? She won’t get dead like Ali Cat? Duncan said that Ali Cat got dead in the hospital and that Gramma Cat . . .”

“She’s not dead, Minnie,” Ned said firmly. The little girl’s question had felt rather like a dagger in his heart. “And she isn’t going to die. Hospitals help people get better.”

She scrunched up her face and tilted her head to look at him as if judging the truthfulness of that statement. “Then how come Duncan said the hospital made Ali Cat get dead? Did Duncan lie?”

Lying was rather a hot topic with Minnie at the moment. Thoroughly tired of her immediate denials of guilt when caught red-handed in any type of misbehavior, Arya gave her frequent lectures on truth versus lies and the importance of always being truthful. Ned wanted badly to record one of these speeches, play it for Arya, and then ask her to recount for him the early years of her relationship with Gendry—just for the joy of watching her squirm uncomfortably. Arya hated hypocrisy in all forms, but his daughter was learning that when it came to parenting, everyone had to be guilty of a little “Do as I say and not as I hope you never find out I have done” in order to raise children with some sort of conscience.

“He didn’t lie, exactly. He just misunderstood. He was only little when your cousin died.”

“Duncan is big,” she contradicted him. “Not as big as Edd, but big.”

“Well, he was smaller then. It’s hard to remember things from when you were small.” He looked at Minnie, remembering Ali Cat at her age. The two girls looked almost nothing alike, but they shared their grandmother’s eyes, and when Minnie looked up at him all wide eyed and questioning, he could sometimes see the granddaughter he’d lost as well as the one he now held. “Do you remember Ali Cat?” he asked softly. She’d died two weeks before Minnie’s third birthday. She couldn’t possibly remember much.

“She had brown hair. Like Edd’s. Only curly.”

“That’s right,” he said softly. Of course, there were countless pictures of all the children all over Winterfell, and Catelyn was forever answering one child’s questions or another about all of them. All the children except the new baby were well aware they had a cousin in heaven. It didn’t truly mean they remembered her. He wished it didn’t bother him so much. It occurred to him that had Catelyn died, Minnie wouldn’t truly have remembered her for very long either, and that thought was unbearable. “She got hurt, Minnie. She wasn’t sick. She was very badly hurt. Too hurt for the people at the hospital to help her although they tried very hard. It’s different with your grandmother. They know how to help her get better from her sickness.”

“Then she should wake up,” Minnie huffed. “And tell Duncan she won’t ever get dead and he’s stupid.”

The little girl reminded Ned so much of her mother in that moment that he had to fight not to laugh. “Now, Minisa,” he said seriously. “Would Grandma Cat ever call Duncan . . . or any of you children . . . stupid?”

She frowned and shook her head.

“Does she like you to call people stupid?”

She shook her head again, and looked at her grandmother. “I want her to wake up. She’ll miss the presents.”

Ned sighed. Now that he had begun to believe Catelyn might truly be all right, it bothered him that she would miss Christmas. Christmas was her absolute favorite time of the year, and she’d be disappointed.

“Hey! She made a face!” Minnie said suddenly. “Gramma, it’s me! I wanna go to your house and get presents. Mommy said I get to sleep there again and Santa Claus will come. I don’t want you to keep sleeping.”

As she spoke, Catelyn wrinkled up her nose and actually turned her head a bit.

“Cat?” Ned said, but she didn’t open her eyes. He reached out to stroke her hair.

“Hey, can I touch her?” Minnie asked.

“Of course, but be gentle.” He scooted the chair even closer so that the little girl could bend over Catelyn. She kissed her on the nose in the same way that Catelyn tended to do with all the children when they were upset or hurt and in need of comfort. “You’re okay, Gramma. You’re not gonna get dead from the hospital so you can wake up now and come home and get presents,” she said encouragingly.

Ned sighed. “I’m afraid Grandma can’t come home today, Minnie. Even when she wakes up, she won’t be well enough.”

“But that’s not fair! She’ll miss Christmas! She can’t miss Christmas!”

Minnie looked completely distraught and Ned sought a way to keep her from melting down entirely at this news. “Minnie Mouse,” he said suddenly, “Do you remember Trick-or-Treat?”

“I was a princess,” she said. “Like Lya and Dy. We were three princesses.”

“Yes,” Ned said, smiling to recall how the three little girls had pranced and twirled and giggled as they’d run from house to house. Lyarra and Minisa had gotten in an argument about who had the most beautiful dress at one point, and Dyanna, ever the peacemaker of the trio, had proclaimed loudly, ‘We are all three the beautifulest princesses in the world!’ 

“But do you remember about Will?” he asked Minnie now.

She bit her lip as she thought about it—a mannerism shared with both her mother and her grandmother, and one that never failed to tug at Ned’s heart. “He didn’t get to come,” she said sadly. “Because of the step thoat.”

“That’s right. Willam had Strep throat so he had to stay home so he could get better and none of the rest of you would get sick. And it made him very sad. But do you remember what we did for him? After Trick-or-Treat was over?”

“We all had to get some of our candy out of our bags and put it in Will’s,” she said. “And Daddy said we couldn’t just give him the yucky kinds. We had to give him some of our good stuff.”

“Yes,” Ned said, smiling at her. “And when he was well, we had a party at Winterfell, remember? And he got to wear his costume, and you got to be a princess again, and he was so happy when you all gave him that bag of candy. That was a good day, wasn’t it, Mouse?” 

She nodded. Then she nearly dove from his arms over the bed rail to get to Catelyn. He held her tightly as she leaned down to whisper very loudly right in her ear. “Don’t worry, Gramma. We’ll save you candy and cookies. And I won’t let anybody get your presents.”

“That’s awfully good of you, Min,” came Gendry’s voice from the direction of the doorway, and Ned turned to see his son-in-law standing behind them. “Grandma Cat will like that.”

“Daddy! Gramma’s sleeping, but I’m allowed to touch her. Grampa said.”

“I’m glad, baby, but it’s time for us to go now.”

“I don’t want to go!” Minnie stuck out her lower lip and grabbed Ned tightly.

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, little girl. And before you throw a fit, you might want to remember who’s supposed to come visit tonight.”

“Will Santa still come? Even if Gramma’s sick?”

“Yes, Minnie. Santa Claus always comes. No matter what.”

Minisa looked up at Ned then, as if seeking confirmation of what her father had said. “No matter what,” he said certainly. “He’s never skipped Winterfell once. Promise.”

“Ned,” Gendry said then. “If having everybody at your house is too much . . .”

“She’ll kill me if I send you all away for Christmas, Gendry. Besides,” he looked meaningfully at Minnie who was looking back and forth between them. “Santa has put in an awful lot of preparation for his Winterfell delivery to ask him to change his plans.” The kids had been bringing Santa Claus presents to stash at Winterfell for weeks now. Having them play Santa for all their little ones anywhere else would require a lot of moving things around. And even if he and Catelyn weren’t there, he wanted his children at Winterfell on Christmas Eve. Even if they had to order in takeout for dinner.

Understanding at least part of this conversation, Minnie piped up. “I wanna sleep at Winterfell! Dy and Lya get to sleep there, too, and we can all sleep in the same bed. Gramma promised!”

“All right,” Gendry laughed, “But Santa won’t come see you at all, if you don’t mind your father. Kiss Grandma and Grandpa, and let’s go, Minnie Mouse.”

Minnie threw her arms around Ned and kissed him about five times all over his face. Then she kissed Catelyn once on the cheek, very softly, and said, “I love you, Gramma,” before skipping out of the room with her father, her mind full of Christmas presents.

Bran rolled into the room only a few minutes afterward with a wide smile on his face. “She’s going to be fine, Dad,” he said. “And that’s the truth.”

“She’s cured then?” Ned asked, his heart in his throat. “He said cancer, Bran. She’s truly cured?”

“Well,” Bran said. “They don’t like using the word “cure” so much this early in the game, and the pathologist refuses to say anything definitively until he’s studied every specimen with every stain. But I pinned Dr. Michaels down as much as I could, and he’s really confident he got the whole tumor. And with the type of cells in it and the complete absence of any mets in everything studied so far, yeah, Dad. Mom’s probably already cured.”

Ned had stood to stretch his legs when Gendry and Minnie left, but now he sank back into his chair, fearful that his legs might give way as the terror that had held sway over him since early this morning finally gave up the last of its grip, leaving him relieved but completely drained. “What about chemo?” he asked. “Will she have to have some sort of treatments? To make sure it’s gone?”

“First of all, Dad, most cancer chemotherapeutics aren’t nearly as toxic as they used to be. We’ve come a long way,” Bran said, and Ned knew his perceptive son realized he was thinking of Robert Baratheon’s grim battle with liver cancer eight years ago. The abuse Robert’s sociopathic son had heaped on Sansa when the two dated in high school had strained their relationship even further than the years Ned had spent working for him (Catelyn would say being overworked by him) had, but he’d not been able to let his one-time best friend die alone. Divorced and estranged from most of his children, scarcely on speaking terms with his brothers, Robert had few real friends remaining by the time of his death. Ned had driven him to and from the debilitating chemo treatments that left him shaking and vomiting and hadn’t been able to save him in the end.

“So, it won’t make her sick?” he asked Bran.

“Well, some forms of chemo still aren’t exactly pleasant,” Bran acknowledged, “But it’s unlikely Mom will even get any. If the final path report comes back as clean as it looks like it will, they’ll just monitor her. Monthly blood tests for cancer markers for awhile, the occasional scan. If everything stays clean, she’ll be free and clear. Today’s surgery could well be all the actual treatment she ever gets.”

Ned could scarcely believe his good fortune. “Thank God,” he breathed. “Thank God.”

“Water,” the word was spoken so softly, Ned almost didn’t hear it. Realizing where it came from, he turned with a start to see the most beautiful blue eyes in the world open and looking at him. “Water,” she said again, her voice painfully hoarse.

“Cat,” he breathed rushing to the bed to caress her face. “You’re awake.”

One of her hands reached up between his and she itched her nose with her long fingers. “I’m thirsty,” she said. “My nose itches.”

Bran laughed. “That’s the pain meds. Itching is a side effect. I’ll go see if she can have ice chips and tell the others she’s awake.” Before he moved toward the door, however, he rolled his chair up to the side of the bed where Catelyn could see him plainly and reached for her hand. “Welcome back, Mom,” he said with a smile. She pulled his hand up to her lips and kissed it, and he smiled more widely before going in search of his siblings and ice chips.

“Ned,” she said, hoarsely, turning toward him. She swallowed and made a face remarkably like the one she kept making in her sleep.

“There was a breathing tube in your throat for your surgery. The nurse said it could irritate it. Do you hurt?”

She nodded. “A little. I’m thirsty.” 

She seemed hesitant and a little confused. He wasn’t certain she was all the way with him yet. “Bran’s gone to get something for you to drink. He’ll be right back, Cat.”

She nodded again, and then before he realized what she was doing, she attempted to sit up. The attempt was very short lived however. She’d barely moved when she cried out in pain and grabbed at her belly.

“Be still, Cat!” he said, panicked. “Be still, my love. Your belly’s going to hurt.”

She looked nearly as panicked as he felt. “Look at me, Cat,” he said, grabbing both of her hands. “Just look at me. You are safe. I know you hurt, but you’re going to be all right. I’m here, Cat. I’m right here, and you’re going to be fine now.”

She did look at him. She held his eyes for a long time without speaking, and he could see the concentration in her blue eyes as she tried to put the pieces together. “They cut me open,” she said finally. “There was something in my belly. On the scan.” She hesitated, and Ned nodded. “It’s over? The surgery?”

“Yes, my love, it’s all over, and you did beautifully. Everything went well.”

She swallowed and grimaced again. “What was it, Ned? What did they find inside of me?”

He smiled at her and stroked her cheek. “It doesn’t matter, Cat.”

She frowned. “Don’t coddle me, Eddard Stark. You tell me now. What’s wrong with me? What did they find?” Her voice was still hoarse, but those words had more force than any of her previous utterances. She sounded more like his Cat.

“It doesn’t matter because it isn’t there anymore,” he said. “They got it all out, Cat. Every bit of it. It’s gone, and as soon as you heal from this surgery, you will be well. I promise.”

“I . . . I’m not going to die?” Her voice trembled and she sounded for all the world like Minnie had asking the same sort of question.

“Oh, god no, Cat! They got the whole thing out. You’re cured.” He didn’t give a damn whether the doctors liked to use that word or not. It’s the word she needed to hear.

“You . . . you aren’t lying to me, are you?” she asked him.

“Look at me, Cat. I’ve never been able to lie to you, and you know it. Look at my face. The thing on your scan was a tumor on your ovary. The surgeon took it out. All of it. And there isn’t any of it anywhere else. God knows they checked everywhere. They’ve been looking at bits of you under a microscope for hours and they can’t find even one cell of it. It’s gone. Do you hear me, my love? It’s gone, and you will be fine.”

She looked at him for a long moment, searching his face, and then she reached for him. He bent down so she could throw her arms around his neck and he gently held her as well as he could without raising her off the bed while she pressed her face against his chest and cried. He realized that she hadn’t cried at all before now except once briefly over ruining Christmas Eve for everyone. His beautiful, brave wife had held her own fears for herself at bay, remaining strong for everyone else until she knew they didn’t need her to be strong anymore. He didn’t care that his back and arms, already sore from holding Minnie, ached in his awkward bent over position. He’d stay like that for a thousand years if that’s how long she needed to cry. 

When Bran returned with the nurse and some ice chips, Catelyn’s tears had slowed, but Ned didn’t let her go until she released her grip on his neck. When he stood and turned around, he saw with pride that his son had his hand up, telling the nurse to stay back until his mother was ready for her to approach. He smiled at Bran, and then turned to the nurse. “My wife is thirsty,” he said, giving Catelyn a few moments to compose herself before she’d undoubtedly be poked, prodded, and asked too many questions. “Her throat does hurt from that breathing tube thing, and her belly hurts terribly if she moves at all.”

“Well, Mr. Stark,” the woman said pleasantly enough, (Ned was happy she wasn’t the wrist-restraints, get out of the room nurse), “Let’s see what we can do for that.” She walked around Bran’s chair and over to the bed. “Hello, Mrs. Stark, I’m Amy. It’s good to see you awake.”

Catelyn nodded. “It’s good to be awake. I am thirsty, though.”

“Well, I can give you a few ice chips. I’m afraid nothing more until the docs are confident your insides have woken up. The intestines tend to get very annoyed by surgery and refuse to do their job for awhile. So, if you put much in your stomach, it just sits there and makes you nauseous.”

“Well, I guess I’ll make do with the ice chips,” Catelyn said. “I am very thirsty, though.”

“Your throat’s dry, Mrs. Stark,” the nurse said, as she pushed a button that caused the blood pressure cuff on Catelyn’s arm to constrict and checked some numbers on the monitors above the bed. “You actually are very well hydrated thanks to this.” She tapped the IV bag. “But endotracheal anesthesia leaves your throat dry and miserable. The ice chips will help.” She stuck a spoon into the cup of ice and spooned one tiny piece into Catelyn’s mouth.

“Mmm,” Catelyn said. “I never thought I’d be so excited to eat a piece of ice.”

The nurse smiled and handed the cup to Ned. “You can give her a few more if you like, but not too many. Let her rest and make sure her belly’s okay with it, and then you can give her one or two every fifteen minutes or so.” Ned nodded, and she turned back to Catelyn. “I just gave you a dose of pain medicine through your IV, Mrs. Stark. It might make you drowsy, but it should take the edge of your belly pain. If you hurt or need anything, just say ‘Call Nurse.’ That activates the iLink from this room to the nurse’s station, or if you can’t speak, you can push the button here.”

Ned decided he liked this nurse. She explained things well and didn’t treat them like idiots. She left then, telling them she’d call the surgeon and let him know how Catelyn was doing. As soon as she was out of the room, Catelyn turned to Bran. “Tell me everything, Bran. What exactly do I have? Or did I have? Your father seems to think it’s all over now.”

“It probably is, Mom. The pathologist will be looking at slides taken from your surgery for days. But if he hasn’t found anything yet, he most likely isn’t going to.”

“Was it cancer?” she asked, her voice hesitating on the word.

“Yeah,” Bran said without hesitation. “But not all cancer is the same, Mom. And it looks like you got lucky on that count. You had a kind that grows a long time right where it is before it spreads anywhere else.”

Bran’s words made perfect sense, and Ned wondered why all doctors didn’t speak so plainly. As Catelyn began asking even more questions, he remembered something he had to do. “I’ll be right back, my love,” he said, bending to kiss her quickly. “Here, Bran. You’re on ice chip duty. Where’s the rest of the crowd?”

“Crowd?” Catelyn asked. 

“Your children,” Ned told her. “And their spouses. Even Minnie was here although that was sort of illegal, and I think Gendry took her home.”

“Minnie!” Catelyn exclaimed. “I think I remember dreaming about Minnie.”

Ned laughed. “If she was practically shouting in your ear that you needed to wake up, you weren’t dreaming.” 

“Nurse Ratchet has them held prisoner out in the waiting area. She’s determined to enforce the two visitors at a time rule,” Bran said in answer to Ned’s original question. “They sent me back in first because they figured Mom would have questions.”

“But I want to see all of you,” Catelyn protested. 

“Apparently, our children are hazardous to your health in large numbers,” Ned said, rolling his eyes. 

“That’s ridiculous!” Catelyn exclaimed. 

Ned bent to kiss her again. “I’ll step out and let one of them come back.”

“Don’t stay gone too long,” she whispered. 

He didn’t want to leave her at all, but he had a call to make. When he walked out into the waiting room, he was quickly surrounded by his children, and once he made it clear that he intended to stay out of Catelyn’s room for a few moments, Arya nearly sprinted down the hall to the take his place before anyone had a chance to discuss it.

“Gendry’s not here, and she immediately starts acting like a twelve year old!” Sansa said, rolling her eyes, but there was no real anger in her voice. She obviously wanted to see her mother, but her overwhelming relief at the good news of Catelyn’s likely full recovery surmounted even her sister’s ability to aggravate her.

Ned smiled at her and walked on until he found an empty alcove. “Call Robb,” he said softly, and within seconds Robb’s face appeared before him. 

“Dad? Is she all right? What’s happening?” Robb sounded almost panicked.

“She’s awake, Robb,” Ned said. “And she’d going to be fine.”

“Fine? How can . . . She’s going to be fine? Are you sure?”

“The doctors say the mass hadn’t spread anywhere. They got it all out, and she’ll be well.” Ned saw no point in going into more detail or qualifying the news in any way. If any of his children needed to hear with certainty that Catelyn would be entirely well now, it was Robb.

“Oh, God,” Robb breathed. “Oh, God, I was so scared. Marg!” he suddenly shouted. “Margie, Mama’s going to be all right. She’s going to be all right.” 

Robb was very nearly crying, and it didn’t surprise Ned at all to see Robb’s image obscured as Margaery apparently threw her arms around him. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, simply allowing his son to be held by his wife as he cried tears of relief and joy instead of unspeakable grief.

When Robb’s face appeared clearly again, he said, “Can I see her? Can I talk to her?”

“Yes, Robb. She’s allowed visitors two at a time. Come to the hospital main entrance and they’ll direct you to her room. It’s 427.”

“I’m on my way. Oh, and Dad? Thanks. For . . . everything.”

“You’re welcome, Robb. Now come see your mother.”

He hung up and walked back through the lobby where Rickon, Jon, Ygritte, Sansa, and young Ned all waited. Sansa was off by herself, texting someone. 

“Take Rickon back with you, Dad,” Jon said. “Then Sansa and Ned can come back, and then Ygritte and me.”

Ned smiled at his oldest son. It wasn’t surprising in the least that Jon volunteered to go last. “Robb’s on his way, Jon. Keep an eye out for him.”

Jon’s smile at that news was all Ned needed to know that Robb wouldn’t face questions or accusations about disappearing this morning. He led Rickon back through the corridor to Catelyn’s room, not meeting any staff members on the way.

“Hey, no wardens,” Rickon said.

“Rick, they’re only doing their job,” Ned admonished gently, although privately he shared the sentiment.

When they entered Catelyn’s room, Bran was sitting quietly while Arya was rattling off a list of things she intended to do at Winterfell to prevent her mother from lifting a finger for a long time after she was discharged. It didn’t escape his notice that she held her mother’s hand so tightly, she was likely cutting off the circulation to her fingers, but Cat didn’t pull it away or complain. Catelyn looked tired and pale, but her eyes shone as she listened to Arya issuing orders.

“I know you’ll want to be in your own room, so it’s good you put the elevator in for Bran’s chair. I’m sure they won’t let you go up and down steps for awhile. Daddy can sleep in Sansa’s old room. It’s the closest to yours, and . . .”

“Arya,” Catelyn interrupted, with a weak laugh. “I appreciate your concern for my well-being, sweetheart, but I’m afraid I draw the line at your kicking my husband out of my bed.”

“I do love being wanted in your bed, Cat, but I believe our daughter simply wants you to recover without my snoring keeping you awake or my elbows hitting you in the belly. She’s got a point,” Ned said, smiling as he walked in with Rickon behind him.

“Rickon!” Catelyn said with delight as she saw him, letting go of Arya’s hand to hold her arms up to him.

“Careful, Rickon. Don’t hurt her,” Arya commanded as her much larger brother bent to give Catelyn a hug.

“Holding my children will never hurt me,” Catelyn said firmly, although Ned saw her wince slightly as Rickon’s embrace raised her up a bit.

“How long do Arya and I have before they come to kick us out?” Bran asked.

“No wardens saw us come in. You’re good,” Rickon told him. “And you look amazing, Mom!”

“You always were a good liar, Rick, but not good enough to fool me,” she said, smiling at him. “But I won’t fuss about it in this case. How’s my baby?”

“I’m great, Mom!” Rickon said with a grin, spinning around in a circle.

She laughed. “Well, you are my baby, but I meant Steffon, and you know it. Is he home with Shireen? A hospital is no place for a baby.”

“Yeah, she’s got him at the apartment. She wishes she could be here to see you, but . . .”

“Never mind that. When you get to Winterfell, tell her I’ve got the two of you and Steffon in your old room. There was plenty of room for me to set up the crib there.”

“Mom . . .” Rickon started, looking concerned. “You know you . . .”

“I know I’m stuck in this godforsaken place for the foreseeable future, but that doesn’t change the fact it’s Christmas Eve. I’ve already told Arya and Bran that . . .”

“She told me she expects me to cook,” Arya said, rolling her eyes. “So it’s a good thing Bran’s a doctor!”

“Arya, you’re a perfectly good cook, and Sansa can help you. She’s made nearly all my recipes at one time or another, and I’ve already got a lot of things pre-made. Jon can help, too. He learned a surprising amount about cooking from Sam over the years. Just don’t let Ygritte in my kitchen, God love her! She can watch the children. Oh, and Margaery can set up the tables. She’s got an eye for making things pretty and festive.”

Ned shook his head in wonder as his wife, from her hospital bed, began issuing orders even more authoritatively than Arya had been doing a few moments before.

“Mr. Stark?” 

Ned turned around to see the nurse called Amy looking into the room.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let this many people stay. Soon, I’m going to have to ask everyone to leave except maybe you. Your wife really does need to rest.”

He nodded. “If we can just let all the children have a turn to come in and see her . . .”

“Yes,” Catelyn said from the bed. “I will not rest a bit until I’ve seen all of them because I know they all need to see me.”

“Of course, Mrs. Stark,” Amy said, smiling. “Why don’t we have Mr. Stark stay here with you, and then maybe let the others come in for just a few moments, two at a time?” 

“That would be fine,” Catelyn said. “Come kiss me, you three, and then you get your babies, Rickon and Arya, and head to Winterfell. Bran, if it’s too late for Wylla to drive back to White Harbor when she finishes your shift, she should come stay at Winterfell tonight, too, and go back in the morning.”

“I’m trying to get her to let me come back to work so she can go now,” Bran said, holding up his iLink text board, “and she’s arguing with me. But now that we know . . .”

“That I’m not dying,” Catelyn interrupted, “You think you should just go right back to work. You’re wrong, Bran. Wylla is right. After what you’ve all been through today, you should be together. Your girlfriend realizes that. Let her do this for you, sweetheart. You’d do the same for her.”

“What we’ve been through?” Arya said indignantly. “Mom, you’re the one who . . .”

“Slept through most of it. Now go, you three. Send in your sister and brothers, and get to Winterfell and have Christmas Eve.” 

“I love you,” Ned said when the children had gone.

“Good. Since it seems you’re stuck with me for a few more years, after all.”

“Don’t even joke about that, Catelyn,” he said, coming to sit beside her and hold her hand. “And don’t you ever keep something like this to yourself again. If you’re sick . . .” He stopped and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. “You’re the most important thing in my world, and I don’t give a damn if it’s Christmas or Easter or the second coming of Christ. If you ever try to put off taking care of yourself again, I swear I will . . .”

“Ned,” she said gently. “I’m fine. Remember? It’s over now.”

“But I don’t ever want to go through that again.”

“I know, my love.” She reached a hand up to his face. Before she could say anything else, though, Sansa burst through the door followed by her husband.

“Mama! Oh, Mama, I’m so glad you’re all right!” Sansa had tears in her eyes, and for a moment, Ned thought she might fling herself at Catelyn, but she stopped herself at the edge of the bed, looking at her mother as if afraid to touch her.

“I am all right, Sansa, and a hug won’t break me.” She reached up to their daughter, and Sansa hugged her gingerly, taking more care than Rickon had, but she pressed her cheek against Cat’s, and Ned marveled at the sight of all the lovely auburn hair tumbling down around the two of them, nearly indistinguishable, although Sansa’s was just a tiny bit lighter. “Happy Birthday, my girl,” Catelyn said as she patted Sansa’s back.

Sansa laughed as she stood up again. “I’d forgotten! It is my birthday, isn’t it?”

“Indeed,” Ned said, “Happy thirty-two, Princess.”

Ned Dayne laughed and said, “Don’t you dare tell the kids you forgot after that rousing rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ they provided you this morning!”

“Did you wake her up, Ned?” Catelyn said, smiling at their son-in-law.

“Of course,” he said. “I made certain promises to her father when I married her, remember?”

Ned Stark smiled at the memory. He’d always liked Edric Dayne, but having his daughter marry into that family hadn’t been easy. In spite of the easing of tensions between the Starks and Daynes through the years, (mostly due to the positive effect the remarkably charming, fair-minded, and truly kind Elia Martell Targaryen Dayne had on her pig-headed husband), the two families would never be close or even truly friendly. Sansa’s big formal wedding had been a logistical nightmare. Young Ned asked Jon to be a groomsman, of course, but then poor Ygritte who was merely Jon’s girlfriend at the time got hassled about which side of the church she would sit on, for God’s sake, so Sansa quickly solved that problem by making her a bridesmaid. Arthur still got bent out of shape that his nephew had more groomsmen who were Starks than non-Starks to which poor young Ned had finally exploded, ‘She’s got four brothers, Uncle Arthur, and you never count Jon as a Stark anyway, so get over it!’ That the wedding and reception themselves had gone off without bloodshed or even any visible hostility was entirely due to the valiant efforts and extraordinary grace of Catelyn and Elia, as the two women had maintained a steadfastly united front in providing the kids with their perfect day.

In the midst of all the stress leading up to that, however, young Ned had bent over backwards to convince Ned that Sansa would be happy as his wife, promising to do any number of things to make that happen. One of those promises had been the birthday song. ‘The birthday wake-up song was your doing,” he’d said. ‘Just to make sure Sansa’s birthday got acknowledged before Christmas Eve. Right?’ Ned had nodded. ‘Well, I promise you that she’ll never wake up on her birthday without it. Wherever we happen to be.’ 

“Yes,” Sansa said sarcastically. “I fear I’m doomed to never, ever sleep late on my birthday thanks to all the men named Ned in my life!” She grinned. “It really was sweet, though. Lya and Dy were really into it this year. I hadn’t really forgotten, Ned. It just . . . waking up this morning seems a million years ago. Once Arya called about Mom, everything just . . .”

Sansa’s eyes filled up with tears, and Catelyn reached for her hand. “I’m fine, Sansa. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

“I know, Mama. I’m sorry. I was just scared. I can’t imagine . . .” Sansa closed her eyes and shook her head. 

Ned knew precisely what she meant and moved to put his own arms around his daughter. “You took care of everyone, though. You’re your mother’s daughter.”

Sansa smiled up at him. Then she turned to face her mother. “Now what’s this I hear about your wanting us to do Christmas without you? We can simply wait and . . .”

“No, you can’t,” Catelyn said emphatically. “First of all, we have no idea how long I’m stuck here. Secondly, the children know perfectly well it’s Christmas Eve. Do you plan to tell them Santa changed his mind?”

“But, Mom, it just . . .”

“But Mom nothing. Sansa, I want to think of you all together—all having Christmas Eve dinner and presents just the way we always do. Please, sweetheart.”

“Well, if you really want us to, Mom . . . I can try,” Sansa said uncertainly.

“Good. Now sit down and let me tell you what all I have done and where everything is.”

Ned watched as his daughter sat down, pulled out her little text board and began taking notes on what Catelyn told her. 

“They’re quite a pair, aren’t they?” his son-in-law said, looking at the two redheads fondly.

“Indeed.” The two of them stood together watching their ladies a moment, and then Ned turned to the younger man. “Come here, young Ned.”

He laughed. “You do realize I’m past thirty now, right?”

“I do. But you’ll always be younger than I am, and it keeps me from feeling like I’m talking to myself.” He led Sansa’s husband over near the door.

“Sansa’s birthday present from us is in our bedroom. It’s already wrapped and in one of Catelyn’s dresser drawers. She usually hides things in the bottom right one, but if it isn’t there, just check all of them.”

“I am not going through my mother-in-law’s drawers,” the younger man, shaking his head. “Besides, you’ll be there, won’t you?”

Ned shook his own head. “I’m not leaving her. Get Arya to find it. God knows she and Bran made a career of looking for presents when they were kids.”

“Maybe that’s where Duncan gets it. He’d been looking pretty hard this year. Thank God we stashed all the Santa presents at your place ages ago. He’s heard a few things at school, but I can tell he’s not ready to give it up yet. He’s only seven. I don’t want him to give up the magic yet, either.”

“Well, Loras is definitely still a true believer at eight,” Ned said with a smile. “He reminds me so much of his father. Robb believed forever. And Edd is very determined not to spoil it for his brother or any of his little cousins so Winterfell will be filled with true believers tonight. Duncan will be caught up in the magic, I’m sure.” He laughed. “Just good luck getting all of them to sleep!”

“Well, we’ve managed it every year so far. The kids will all miss you and Cat, though.”

“We’ll miss them. They’ve got a big screen over there. Maybe, if she’s up to it, we can do a big group iLink for a bit.” He hadn’t thought of that before, but now it seemed a very good idea. As long as he could get her to rest until the evening.

“Come on, Ned,” Sansa said, walking over to them. “We’ve made poor Jon wait long enough, and I’ve apparently got a million things to do before dinner time. Can you drop me at Winterfell before you go get the kids?”

“Whatever you need, birthday girl,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. “Just let me say goodbye to your mom.”

As young Ned walked over to Catelyn’s bed, Sansa gave her father a hug. “I love you, Daddy. I intend to have dinner ready by 6:30 so make sure you’re home by then. I’m afraid if I push it much later the little ones will start drooping before present time. And I want them to have enough time to play afterward so that they’ll go to bed decently. We’ve got an awful lot of toys to put out!”

“Well, you’re on your own for that, Princess. I just told your husband I’m staying here with your mother.”

“Oh, you are, are you?” She gave him a smile that made her look more like her mother than ever—like Catelyn looked when she was certain she knew more than you did.

“Now, I just need to see my big boys,” Catelyn said to him after Sansa and young Ned had gone. 

“Well, it’ll be Jon and Ygritte first. I’m not certain Robb’s here yet.”

“Robb isn’t here?” she asked. Then a horror struck expression came over her face. “Oh, god, of course he couldn’t sit here while I was in surgery! My poor, sweet boy! Oh, Ned. Please tell me he’s with Margaery and the boys!”

“He is, my love. Or he was at any rate. He’s on his way here now. He’d asked me to call him as soon as you woke, and he’s on his way.”

“I hadn’t even thought of how this must have been for him,” Catelyn said sadly. “But he’s been with Marg?” 

Ned nodded. It was true after all, and she didn’t need to hear all the details. Not today. 

“That’s good. That’s very good.”

“Mom!” 

Ned looked up to see Jon enter the room with a smile lighting up his entire face. Like Ned, Jon didn’t smile as frequently as most, and many thought him somber or unhappy. Nothing could be further than the truth, of course. Like his father, Jon felt very blessed with his life, and the grin on his face at this moment would have made that clear to anyone.

“Ah, come here, Mini Ned!” Catelyn said, reaching up with her arms.

Ned and Jon both laughed at the old nickname. Jon was nearly two inches taller than he was and by rights couldn’t be called ‘mini’ anything by anyone in the family except Rickon. Unlike Rickon, he handled Catelyn as if she were made of glass as he bent to kiss her. He and Robb had always been fiercely protective of their mother. Almost as protective as she was of them and the rest of the children.

“I won’t break, Jon,” she laughed at him. “Come here, Ygritte. If you’ve been putting up with him all day in this hospital, you definitely deserve a hug.”

“Aw, he hasn’t been that bad,” Ygritte said as she bent for her hug. Catelyn gave her a frankly disbelieving look as she stood back up, and Ygritte laughed. “Okay, he’s been a grumpy, short-tempered pain-in-the-ass, but I can’t blame him a bit. We’re all just so glad you’re okay, Mama Cat.”

Ned smiled at his daughter-in-law’s name for Catelyn. Other than similar hair color, she and his wife seemingly had nothing in common. Ygritte was a cop and a good one. She had no interest whatsoever in housekeeping or cooking. Jon liked to tease that she couldn’t boil water. She was a hell of a mother to young Willam, though. For a woman who refused to get married for more than five years and frequently said she never wanted kids, she’d taken to marriage and motherhood like a duck to water. Early in her relationship with Jon, when Catelyn still hadn’t known what on earth to make of her, Ygritte had laughed once at the way Catelyn fussed over all the children, saying it reminded her of a mama cat with her kittens. As she’d grown up mostly in the foster care system, Ygritte had no real mother of her own. As the two women had learned to appreciate each other through the years, Ygritte had taken the old joke and made it her own personal name for Catelyn, and Ned knew that his wife actually loved it.

“Sansa said Will’s at Ben and Mark’s?” Catelyn asked now.

Jon nodded, laughing. “They’ve got Sansa’s kids, too. And they had Minnie for awhile. The two of them might as well open a daycare.”

“I haven’t even called Ben!” Ned said suddenly. “Or Edmure. I really need to . . .”

“Sansa had me call them, Dad. She kind of figured you stopped with us.” He turned to his mother. “Uncle Ben said to give you a kiss and tell you to get well enough to reclaim your grandchildren in all haste.” Everyone laughed. “And Edmure said he’d drive up here tomorrow after Santa comes for his kids.”

It still boggled Ned’s mind that Catelyn’s brother had children young enough to believe in Santa while he and Cat had a grandchild old enough to not. But the man hadn’t married until he was forty and had wed a much younger woman—a girl Robb had actually dated when they were teens. So his two children were five and seven.

“Edmure should stay with his family,” Catelyn said sharply. “I’ll call him and tell him he . . .”

“No you won’t. He said that he could murder you for scaring him half to death, but now he could kiss you for getting him out of Christmas dinner with the Freys!”

Everyone laughed again. Edmure’s distaste for his in-laws was well known. Since Hoster Tully had died, however, Christmas Day dinners at Riverrun had become a thing of the past. As Ned and Catelyn always had all their kids on Christmas Eve, they often went elsewhere on Christmas Day—Sansa and Ned always went to the Daynes, Robb and Margaery always went to the Tyrells, but the other four spent Christmas Day in various places with various people, and at least one or two of them usually stayed at Winterfell throughout the day. Edmure and Roslin came every other year (this year was a Frey year), Benjen pretty much showed up every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day unless he and Mark took a trip somewhere, and Cat’s sister Lysa used to come occasionally.

“What about Lysa? Have any of you spoken to her?” Catelyn asked now.

“I called and left a message, my love,” Ned said. “While you were in surgery—to let her know you were here.”

“Edmure said he’d let her know you’re okay, Mom.”

No one said that Lysa hadn’t returned Ned’s call. No one had to. Since her second marriage three years ago to a man who’d stalked Catelyn for half her life and had at one point even become alarmingly interested in Sansa as a teen, she’d cut off almost all contact with the Starks. It made Cat sad, but there was little she could do about it. She wouldn’t let Petyr Baelish in her home, and Lysa wouldn’t come without him. Cat called her sister every week, but Lysa didn’t always answer. 

“Well, that’s good,” Catelyn said softly. “She’d worry, you know. Even if she won’t come.”

Everyone was quiet for a bit after that, and then Catelyn said, “You two need to scoot. Get Will and head over to Winterfell. It’s Christmas Eve. You all should have been there ages ago!”

“Mom,” Jon started.

“Not you, too, Jon. Christmas does not get canceled, postponed or otherwise messed up because I got a bellyache and fainted.”

“Cat!” Ned said almost indignantly. “You’ve had a good bit more than a bellyache.”

She shrugged. “Well, that’s what I’ve got now. And even that feels a bit better thanks to the magic stuff dear Amy puts in my IV. Grab your uncles, while you’re at it Jon. Tell them I expect them to go to Winterfell.”

“Mark’ll tell me he’s not my uncle until this summer,” Jon said, grinning.

“Mark’s full of hot air,” Catelyn replied. “When I told him back in 2015 that it was ridiculous to put his parents’ ridiculous concerns above his own happiness, he told me he didn’t need a courthouse or a license or a law to know that he and Ben were as married as Ned and I were. So obviously, he’s been your uncle for years!”

Ned knew that it had hurt Benjen when Mark had refused to marry him as soon as it was legal because of his parents’ fierce opposition to the idea, but the relationship between the two of them had been strong enough to weather that storm, and now that both of Mark’s parents had died, his father several years ago and his mother this past summer, the two had a wedding celebration planned that promised to be the event of the summer. Every one of Ned’s grandchildren were to be involved in some way except Steffon, and if Ben or Mark could figure out a way to put a seven or eight month old in a wedding party, they’d do it.

“I’ll make sure they come, Mom,” Jon said. “But before we go, Ygritte and I want to give you your Christmas present.”

“Oh, Jon, I don’t need anything. You shouldn’t . . .” Catelyn started

Jon took Ygritte’s hand, and she smiled. “Well technically, Mama Cat, you don’t get this present until June.”

Catelyn’s face lit up brighter than the Christmas tree at Winterfell and Ned realized what Ygritte was saying. Then they were all hugging each other and the two women were crying and laughing at the same time.

“So you think you can handle another grandchild?” Jon asked them, grinning.

“Oh, grandparenting’s easy,” Ned said. “We always get to give them back.”

“Does Will know?” Catelyn asked. 

Jon nodded. “We told him a couple days ago. He’s been begging for a little brother forever. We’ve warned him it might be a sister. Anyway, he’s very excited, but sworn to secrecy until tonight. He’s usually pretty good about secrets, but after a day like today, and having spent most of it with Uncle Ben and Mark . . .” Jon shook his head. “There’s no telling what anyone knows now. We planned to announce it at dinner tonight, but . . . We weren’t telling anyone other than Will before we told you, Mom.”

“Ten,” Catelyn whispered softly. “Ten grandchildren.” She always counted Ali Cat. She didn’t make a big deal of it. She didn’t try to pretend she wasn’t dead. She simply always acknowledged that she’d lived. That she had been, and always would be, their grandchild. Ned loved her for it. She smiled up at him. “I’m not old enough to have ten grandchildren. I’m not even sixty yet!”

“You aren’t even quite fifty-nine yet, my love, but I’m afraid they’re all yours. And mine. But then, I am sixty, so I’m old enough for the job.”

“Maybe you’ll have the baby on Jon’s birthday, Ygritte!” Catelyn said, after shaking her head at Ned.

“I’m due a week after that, but Will was a couple days early. So maybe.”

“I’m so happy for both of you.” Catelyn yawned as she ended the sentence.

“We should let you rest, Mom. Dad, see you at Winterfell?”

“Actually, I’m not going . . .”

“Yes, you’ll see him for dinner,” Catelyn said certainly. “Now give me kisses, both of you, and go on.”

“Cat, I’m not leaving you here alone,” Ned said, once they’d left.

“Yes, you are. I need to sleep, Ned. I can barely keep my eyes open, although I’m not going to close them until Robb gets here. And you don’t need to watch me. You’re going home to have Christmas Eve with all our children.”

“You aren’t going to win this argument, Cat. I’m not leaving you. I’m going to sit right here in this chair and spend Christmas Eve watching you sleep, and you’re hardly in a position to stop me.”

“Sansa,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s Sansa’s birthday. You haven’t missed giving her her present since she was twelve years old.”

“That’s the Christmas Eve I swore to myself I’d never spend another one anywhere but by your side,” Ned countered.

She sighed. “Please, Ned. I’m asking this for me. I want you with our children. I want you to tell me everything. I want to know that you’re presiding over dinner with all our babies around you. Please give me that for Christmas.”

He hated the way she never let him win arguments. More than thirty-three years he’d been married to this woman, and while he’d managed to gradually change her mind on a few things (the wisdom of marrying him would be the first), he didn’t think he’d ever won an actual argument. But as she looked up at him with those gorgeous eyes full of love and pleading, asking this as a present for her . . . 

“I’ll go for dinner, Cat. Once I’m certain you’re comfortable and cared for.”

“I don’t know how comfortable I’ll be, but I’m always cared for. I’m married to you.”

He was kissing her when Robb nearly fell into the door of the room. “Mom?”

Ned raised up and moved back so that Robb could see his mother, and he watched as his son’s face seemed almost to crumble. “Mom!” he said in what was nearly a sob. 

“Come here, baby,” she said, and she hit the button on her bed, raising the back higher than she had before. If it hurt her, she didn’t show it in her face. 

Robb stumbled forward and nearly fell onto his knees at the side of the bed, putting his head against her chest as he began crying. 

“Hush, baby. I’m all right. I’m all right, sweet boy.” 

Ned watched them for a moment, his broken son and his beautiful wife who would never let anyone see her brokenness. Then he quietly slipped out into the hall to let them say whatever they needed to say between them.

It was about twenty minutes before Robb came back out. “She’s really okay, isn’t she?” he said.

“She is. And you know your mother. She intends to stay that way.”

“She understood, Dad. She understood it all. She wasn’t even mad.” Robb shook his head. “I hate that I left her here.”

“Robb, your mother knows what this place is to you. She would never have you hurt more than you must.”

He nodded. “She worries about me.”

“We’ve all been worried about you, son.”

Robb looked up at him. “You were right, Dad. I’ve been running away. I’ve been hiding. And what happened to Ali Cat isn’t something I can run away or hide from no matter how hard I try.” He swallowed. “Marg and I talked. We talked a long time.”

Ned simply looked at him, waiting for him to continue.

“I won’t say everything’s . . . all right between us. It isn’t. But we both want it to be. And that’s a start. I love her, Dad. And she loves me.” He closed his eyes and his breath caught. Ned realized his son’s emotions were much nearer the surface than usual. “Ali . . . she was our baby. We both loved her so much. She ripped holes in both of our hearts when she left, and we haven’t . . . we haven’t figured out how we’re supposed to love each other well enough with just the parts left behind. But it’s time we started working on that.”

“You’ll figure it out, Robb. As long as you’re both trying and you both want it, you’ll get there. And you’ll help the boys get there as well.”

“We do love each other. I think we both needed to hear that today, and we both needed to say it. And we did.”

“That’s good, Robb. That’s very good.”

Robb surprised him then by laughing. “Do you know what else she told me today, Dad? She looked at me and said, ‘No matter how pissed off I get at you, I can’t help liking you, Robb.’ And I laughed, and I think it made her mad until I explained. I told her what Mom said to me the day we got engaged. Do you remember? She asked me if I liked Margaery, and told me that I should marry someone I loved and liked. And I told Marg today that I couldn’t help liking her either, and that since we love each other and like each other, we’ll definitely find our way through this. Because Mom can’t be wrong. Not about marriage.”

“What did Margaery say to that?”

“She kissed me. She kissed me and told me she’d missed me and she was glad I’d come home.”

Ned smiled. “I’m very glad, son. It won’t be easy, you know. The two of you have suffered a loss beyond comprehension. And you’ve hurt each other. Healing that won’t be easy. But it will be worth it.”

Robb nodded, and Ned hugged him. “Go on and get your wife and sons to Winterfell. It seems we’re all under your mother’s orders to celebrate.”

When he walked back into Catelyn’s room, she’d lowered her bed again and her eyes were closed. He moved as silently as he could to the chair beside the bed.

“I’m not asleep, Ned.”

“How did you know it was me? Your eyes are closed.”

She didn’t open her eyes even then. “After more than thirty years, you think I don’t know your step? I’d know you anywhere, my love.” She yawned. “I called for Amy. She’s bringing me more of those pain meds. And more ice chips. My throat is dry from all this talking, and my belly’s starting to hurt more. And my skin itches where it’s glued back together, but Amy says I’m not allowed to scratch. Seems unfair, really.” She yawned.

“Sleep, my love, and I’ll be here when you wake.”

“No. You’ll be at Winterfell. Promise me, Ned.”

“I promise I’ll go, Cat.”

Amy came in then, and Catelyn roused herself enough for Ned to spoon a few more ice chips into her mouth. Then she sank into a deep sleep, no doubt sped on her way by whatever the nurse had put in her IV.

“How long will she sleep?” he asked.

“Oh, that was a pretty strong dose, Mr. Stark. She’ll likely be out for hours. I want her to rest well. She may be able to actually drink later this evening so I’m going to try not to disturb her any more than I have to until then.”

“All right. I’ll be back by eight or eight-thirty. Take care of her, Amy.”

“I will. But I thought you told her you’d go to Christmas Eve at home.”

“I told her I’d go. I told her I’d eat dinner. I didn’t tell her I’d stay there all night.”

Christmas Eve dinner was a remarkably festive affair even without Catelyn’s presence. There were twenty-two people of various sizes and ages, including little Steffon, and while Ned missed Catelyn every moment, he realized she’d been right to make him come. Sansa and the others had pulled off a fantastic meal, but of course Sansa was quick to point out that they’d only had to heat up a good number of the dishes as Cat had already prepared them.

The children asked lots of questions about their grandmother. The boys seemed to understand that Catelyn had to remain in the hospital and wouldn’t be appearing. They only wanted repeated reassurances that she was truly going to get well. The girls, being younger, kept asking if she was finished with her nap yet, (it appeared Minnie had spoken to the other two on this subject), why she couldn’t just nap in her own bed, and if she’d wake up in time for presents. When they finally understood that she wouldn’t come home at all, their biggest concern was whether or not Santa Claus would be able to find her at the hospital.

When the meal was finished, everyone sang to Sansa as she blew out candles on three lemon cakes, Cat having decided that one cake simply wasn’t enough as the grandchildren began arriving in ever larger numbers. Jon and Ygritte made their baby announcement to much excitement, and Ned was pleased to see Robb put his arm around Margaery and make certain she was all right. The two of them seemed genuinely happy for Jon and Ygritte when they went to hug them as well. It was a much different reaction than they’d had to the announcement of Shireen’s pregnancy less than a year after Ali Cat’s death. He felt hopeful as he watched them together and with their boys. He’d definitely share that with Cat.

As the kids began to get restless in anticipation of their presents, Ned went upstairs to retrieve Sansa’s birthday present as it was always given first by his decree. It was a watch—not that anyone needed a watch anymore when your iLink would tell you the time any time you asked. But this had been Catelyn’s mother’s watch, a lovely gold thing with little diamonds at 12 and 6 o’clock. Edmure had found it at Riverrun when going through some old things and since he had two boys, had asked Cat if she wanted it. Having given Arya her mother’s ring when she got married, Cat had jumped at the chance to give something of her mother’s to Sansa.

Sansa loved it, of course, although Ned wished Cat had been there herself to explain whose it had been and watch their daughter’s face.

After that, it was time for him to go. No one even tried to talk him out of it. Jon did shove a large book with beautiful pictures into his hand. “If she’s up to it,” he said. And Ned nodded. He retrieved his gift to Catelyn from under the tree and headed back to the hospital where he found his wife awake and nearly sitting up in the bed sipping a drink through a straw under Amy’s watchful eye.

“Ned! What are you doing here?” Catelyn exclaimed. “You promised you’d . . .”

“Go home and have Christmas Eve dinner with our children. And I did. And I gave Sansa her birthday present, which she loved.”

“Oh, did she like it? Really? Tell me, Ned. Tell me everything.”

Her annoyance with him for finding a loophole in the promise she’d extracted from him disappeared rapidly as she pumped him for details on every aspect of the dinner. He tried to remember everything and tell it in much more detail than he normally spoke. She was the storyteller, not him. That reminded him. “Cat?” he asked her when he honestly couldn’t think of one more thing to tell her from Winterfell. “Are you terribly tired?”

“I feel like I’ve run a million miles,” she answered, “while someone beat me in the stomach. But I’m not sleepy. Not now. I just wish I were at home with you and the kids.”

“Well, Jon sent this.” He retrieved the book from where he’d laid it just inside the door. “We can probably use that big screen up there with your iLink or mine.” He handed her the book.

“Oh, Ned,” she whispered, tears coming to her eyes. “Yes. Yes, please.”

Ned called for Amy who thankfully was far more technologically savvy than he was and they got the connection made. 

“Call home,” Catelyn said. The home link would allow the kids all to speak through the sensor in the parlor and the camera there would show all of them. “Eddard!” Cat exclaimed, and Ned knew their oldest grandson had picked up the call somewhere in the house. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Tell your father to put the call on the big screen in the parlor, and I’m going to put you on the screen here, so Grandpa can see everyone, too, and you can see both of us.”

A moment later, Ned was looking at the crowd in his home up on the screen opposite the bed. They were obviously looking at the screen there as there were suddenly multiple excited shouts of, “Grandma Cat!” from a variety of young voices. “Look at Baby Steffon, Grandma!” yelled Lyarra. “He’s a little elf!” As if on cue, Eddard picked Steffon up from some sort of baby carrier and held him out for inspection.

Catelyn laughed, “Oh, he looks adorable!” Ned privately thought he looked a little ridiculous in the miniature elf suit complete with bells on the tiny boots, glitter through the red and green fabric, and a pointed hat that actually lit up on the top covering the soft wisps of black hair on his little head. But the three little girls still seemed as enchanted by their baby elf as they had at dinner and now talked over top of each other as they vied for their grandmother’s electronic attention.

The boys didn’t take long to get in on the act. Loras, Duncan, and Will all held up the play swords and shields they’d received and proceeded to engage in a mock battle for Ned’s and Catelyn’s entertainment until Duncan nearly took out a lamp and Sansa put a stop to it. Poor Edd wanted to show them every single feature of the telescope he’d received and describe it in great detail, but the littler ones kept jumping in front of him and interrupting. 

Finally, Jon and Robb stepped forward. “There are radar reports of a sleigh being pulled by reindeer just north of here. Headed this direction,” Robb said.

“I’m going to bed,” Jon said. “I’m not taking any chances.”

The two of them had been doing this routine since they’d first learned the truth about Santa and started performing it to get their younger siblings to bed, and Catelyn reached out and took Ned’s hand as they watched their two oldest sons, the two sons who in large part were responsible for their getting married in the first place, now convincing the next generation of Starks that Santa’s arrival was imminent.

Ned looked at as wife and she nodded. “Boys?” he said, looking toward the screen. “I think we have time for one story, don’t we? As long as we all hurry right to bed after?”

“Yes! Yes!” came multiple voices. And Will looked directly at them from the screen and said, “Grandma Cat? Do you got the book?”

“I’ve got it, Will,” she said with a smile, holding it up. “Now sit down all of you. Close together there, so I can see you and you can all see me.”

Ned watched as his grandchildren piled onto the floor like so many wild puppies, wiggling and squealing and jockeying for position. They went amazingly still, however, the moment his wife began to read . . .

“’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

Minnie squeaked at that line, and several of the adults laughed.

“The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.”

“Who’s St. Nickels?” That was one of the twins, but Ned hadn’t seen which.

“Santa Claus. It’s just another name for Santa Claus,” Loras explained with great authority.

When the children quieted again, Catelyn continued, and there were no more questions as she read through the entire poem, although there were certainly giggles and squeals of delight. Ned was delighted and enchanted himself. She always read aloud with great flair and was easily the preferred reader of all the children, but with this particular book, she always managed to outdo herself. Her voice was nothing less than magical, and every year when she read it to the children, Ned found himself believing in Santa Claus again.  
This year, he could barely take his eyes from her. Mere hours ago, he’d feared he could lose her, and here she was, mesmerizing their small children and adult children alike. As he looked at the adults, he realized he saw Wylla there now. She must have arrived after he left. Her green hair had been tinted with red streaks, and he supposed that was a nod to Christmas. Bran certainly looked at her like she was a Christmas present. All of his children looked happy. Rickon held Steffon now, and Shireen sat with her head on his shoulder. His four married children all sat or stood with their spouses, each of them touching in some way. Even Ben and Mark held hands as they listened to Catelyn read.

“But I heard him exclaim ‘ere he drove out of sight—  
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

After a few seconds of silence, the spell woven by Catelyn’s voice was broken, and everyone began clapping and cheering. Then the adults began encouraging the children to tell their grandparents goodnight, and shouts of “Goodnight, Grandma!” and “Goodnight, Grandpa!” and “We love you!” tumbled over top one another as Ned and Catelyn did their best to say good night to each one individually and not leave anyone out. When the connection at last was broken, and the screen went dark, Catelyn looked at him with tears in her eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

He smiled and reached for her present. “Merry Christmas, Cat.”

“Ned! Yours is at the house!”

“And I’ll get it tomorrow. But I want you to open yours now.”

She shook her head at him, but opened it up and gave a squeal worthy of Minnie or Lya or Dy when she saw it.

“Oh, I’ve wanted one of these!”

“I know. Look.”

He took the little cube from her hand and pushed the button. Instantly, short, silent videos of their grandchildren began to play—one after another. All of the kids were on there. When he’d decided to get her the video cube—like a digital picture frame, but for videos—he’d had great fun filming them everywhere.

“It’s on silent,” he said, “So that you can leave it on display just like a picture. But if you want to hear their little voices, you can push there.” 

Catelyn pushed the button, and they were treated to Dyanna calling out, “Grandpa, come push me higher!” from a swing at the park, then Duncan and Will singing some ridiculous song, then all three little girls reciting in sing-song fashion, “We love you, Grandma Cat!”

She pushed the silencer button. “Oh Ned, I love it!”

“I knew you would. And I wanted you to have it tonight. I wanted you to have them here with you.”

“How many videos are on it?” 

“Oh, I lost count. At least a hundred. Most are only a few seconds. Some older, some new.” Ned watched the now silent moving pictures, and then said, “Oh, turn the sound back on.”

Cat hit the button again just as a little girl with thick, wavy brown hair and Catelyn’s blue eyes appeared on the display, holding a plush white cat. “See my kitty, Gramma? She’s like us! We’re all cats. Gramma Cat and Ali Cat and white kitty cat! Cats are the bestest!”

“Oh,” Catelyn said softly. “I remember that day. We had all three of Robb’s kids for the weekend. You won her that thing at the carnival, remember?”

“Of course, I remember.” 

She leaned to the side of the bed where he could hold her. “I miss her every day,” she said simply, handing him the cube to put down on the bedside table. He silenced it before doing so.

“I know. I do, too.”

“Robb and Margaery looked good together tonight. Like you said.”

“They’ll be all right, Cat. Did you see them all there tonight? They’re amazing. All of them. Just like the woman who raised them.”

“Well, I can only take credit for raising six of them. And you helped.”

“You’ve had a big part in all of them, and you know it. Sometimes I look at them, and I can’t even believe the family we’ve made. I love them all so much, and I see you in every single one of them.”

“I love you, Ned.” She swallowed. “I have a confession to make. I was scared. When it started getting hard for me to eat. And I felt so tired. I knew there was something wrong, and I was afraid it was something bad.”

“Why didn’t you . . .”

“I wanted to get through Christmas. Don’t fuss at me! I was afraid it was something terrible. And I wanted one last Christmas. I wanted it to be good for everyone. I didn’t want all of you to forever associate Christmas with my getting sick the way that the Fourth of July will always be the day Ali Cat died. And I realize that was probably stupid, but I was just scared and . . .”

He wasn’t even aware of climbing into the narrow bed with her. He was just there, lying beside her and holding her tightly. He was vaguely aware that he should be angry at her—putting her health at risk to preserve some stupid holiday. He might be angry with her about it later. But right now he could only be grateful she was still here in his arms, and he wanted only to make her feel safe there forever.

“Are you staying?” she asked quietly after a moment.

“Of course,” he said. “I think one of these chairs reclines a bit, and I can . . .”

“No.”

“Catelyn, I’m not leaving. Don’t even try it.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” she said. “But you can sleep right where you are. I know it’s a bit cramped, but we’ve slept in smaller spaces.”

“We’ve done many things in smaller spaces, but I don’t think the hospital staff will approve.”

She laughed. “Well, I’m not in any condition to do anything that might scandalize them, Ned. I just want to sleep with my husband. I always sleep better next to you.”

“I do everything better when I’m with you.”

“Well then, maybe we should get married,” she said. “We’re good together, and I think we could do a pretty good job of giving our kids a family.”

“Pretty sure we did that already,” he said, thinking that he should get up at least to take off his shoes.

She laughed again. “Don’t you remember? That’s more or less what you told me thirty-five years ago today in the world’s most unorthodox proposal.”

“Oh, that’s right! Thirty-five years ago, huh? Well, maybe it was unorthodox, but you can't say it was ineffective.” He decided the shoes could wait. She had folded herself against him almost the way she did at home, hampered from turning completely onto her side by the pain in her belly from the surgery.

“Not ineffective at all,” she assured him. She looked up into his face. “Ned, I am going to be fine, and I hope we both live another thirty-five years, but I want you to know something. If I had died today . . .”

“Cat, don’t.”

“Just listen. If I had died today, I would have had no unmet desires, no lingering regrets or bitter longings. From the moment you offered yourself to me in that old library, I’ve had everything I’ll ever want or ever need. Even if it did take me a bit to figure it out.” She kissed his cheek. “You’re my everything, Ned. And I know I’m yours. You tell me every time you look at me. And together, we can accomplish anything. Together, we have accomplished everything—everything I need to make my heart full.”

Not for the first time or even the thousandth, he wished he could speak like she could. He wished he could say what he felt. Their lives, individually and together, had been messy and complicated and filled with no small amount of tragedy and pain. Their children had all faced and would still face challenges and hurts all their own. They’d all hurt each other at times. Yet there was nothing better. Nothing more perfect in all the universe than what they shared, what they had made. He looked at the silent images of their grandchildren waving and dancing and skipping and laughing on the v cube by the bed. _What we are still making,_ he thought. A new grandchild coming in July. His brother’s wedding before that. Hopefully, Rickon and Shireen’s wedding at some point—it would certainly make Catelyn happy. Bran’s graduation from residency, maybe marriage for him as well, if he wanted it. Always there was something to look forward to. Something to rejoice in right now. Something to look back on with love and gratitude.

“A life,” he said softly.

“What?” she murmured, and he realized she was falling asleep against him, and that seemed the most important thing in the world in this moment. He could sleep in his shoes.

“That’s what we’ve been making, you and me. What we’re still making. A life. And it’s a damn good one.”

“Mmhm,” she murmured as she yawned. “I love our life. I love you, Ned.”

He ran his fingers through her hair as he’d done a million times. “Merry Christmas, my love,” he whispered. “I love you, Cat. I always have. I always will. And that’s the heart of everything good in my life.”

Across town, in the parlor at Winterfell, toys were being assembled, possibly an occasional curse word was heard, exhausted laughter was undoubtedly heard, and Ned hoped his children would finish their Santa Claus duties in time to share in a midnight Christmas toast before falling into bed to await the inhumanly early wake-up call of children on Christmas morning. He smiled at the thought of it all.

But on this night before Christmas, he wished to be nowhere in the world but in this too narrow, too hard hospital bed, wearing shoes that made it impossible for his feet to stretch out in comfort, trying not to move at all lest he disturb the woman sleeping beside him. Because when he held her beside him, he felt all things were indeed possible. And that was all he truly wanted for Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's the end. At least I finished it in December! I hope you have enjoyed this little walk through the life of a couple and a family, and I wish all of you a very happy 2016!


End file.
